Instead the party-in-power wants to make an issue of something that effects what percentage of the population? Anyone know how many lesbians and gays in this country want to get married compared to number of people without healthcare or in danger of losing it, not to mention those saddled with high Cobra payments (boy, there's a name)?
What 1 percent, 2 percent vs. 20 percent or more?
I decided to do a little 'Net search and came up with the following interesting bits of info.
On the subject of America's ailing health care system, the Washington Post's David Broder wrote a recent column entitled "Our Broken Health Care System"
Referring to Bill (made-a-fortune-in-for-profit-hospitals) Frisk, Broder writes, "He spelled out some of the scary statistics behind those generalizations. Expense? The United States spends almost 15 percent of its income on health care, far more than other advanced countries. That's about $5,540 a year for every man, woman and child.
"Costs are rising four times as fast as wages. One informed estimate places the cost of employer-sponsored health care coverage for the average family at $14,500 in 2006, just two years from now.
"The Census Bureau found last year that almost 44 million Americans had gone without health insurance for the previous year. That number has been increasing by roughly 2 million a year. Families USA, a consumer group, says that almost 82 million people, one out of three below age 65, were uninsured at some point during 2002-03, most of them for at least nine months."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50500-2004Jul14.htmlOkay, let's take the 44 million number and divide that by the current US population of 293 million. 15% of population was without some form of health care coverage last year. Take the 82 million number and it nearly doubles to 28%.
And the number of gay couples in the US clamoring for marriage rights? Well, I came across this interesting article on gay marriage in The Netherlands. Assuming the statistics apply to the homosexual population in North America, then those interested in marriage represents only one-third of one percent.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/livestro200406290924.aspHealth care reform impacting 100% of Americans indirectly and as many as 28% directly would seem a significantly more important issue to be talking about and working towards than one that impacts 0.33 percent of the population. This isn't to say that gay couples shouldn't be entitled to the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, but on the list of national priorities, it would appear to me to be one that is fairly low down on the list, and should more rightly be left to the States to resolve, which is exactly what Dick Cheney argued for in the 2000 VP debates with Joe Lieberman (this courtesy of the John Stewart show's "Zen Moment" tonight).
Comments and criticisms welcome.
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