Oracle Online

Our northern neighbor continues to provide safe havens for the most dangerous of threats: affordable prescription medications for sick Americans. Good news for patients, but a danger to drug companies with pockets deep enough to buy politicians and an interest in keeping American drugs the most expensive on the planet. The FDA and the Bush administration announced that keeping inexpensive medicine on the northern side of the border may cause terrorists to tamper with them.

Imported drugs can’t pose any more of a threat than the one already faced by 23 million Americans who are forced to do without medicine they can’t afford. The consequences are horrific. The Bush administration’s policy, implemented at the expense of low-income Americans, does serve one distinct purpose: protecting drug industry profits from price competition. The pharmaceutical industry is the most lucrative in America.

The threat posed by this administration, one that aggressively conspires with business interests to keep
drug prices out of the reach of the poor, is the greatest threat to Americans.

While President Bush has been in office, family premiums have increased by more than $3,500, and the cost of prescription drugs has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation. These unreasonable increases in the cost of health care have not only hurt our economy, but forced many families into bankruptcy. In recent presidential debates, Bush blamed trial lawyers, such as John Edwards, for this increase in health-care costs. However, only one-half percent of health-insurance costs are attributed to lawsuits. The high costs of insurance are due to nothing other than President Bush’s lack of compassion for Americans who can’t afford health care, and his sympathy for those who can. The solution cannot begin with lowering the cost of health care for those who can already afford it. Instead, the solution should start by giving those in dire need of insurance the opportunity to acquire it. John Kerry and John Edwards are fighting for this.

Kerry and Edwards believe that every American’s health care is equally important. They will provide all Americans with the same coverage that members of Congress have.

Bush believes that health care should be only provided to those who can afford it, keeping consistent with a hoarding Republican ideology, and Kerry believes that health care should be affordable for all.
Affordable health care should be a right, not a privilege.

Today, approximately 25 percent of health care costs are wasted on paperwork and administrative processing. The Kerry-Edwards plan will cut wasted funds and save billions.

The Bush administration’s obvious disregard for human life and their priority of profits over people represent the most heinous results of corporate power. They are an illustration of the need to take a new direction in American health care, one that can be pursued by Kerry and Edwards.

-Katie Vaughan