As Senator Kerry has aptly stated, health care is a right.  It is not a mere commodity to be bought and sold, for which only those with wealth can qualify.  A country of such great wealth and high ideals as the United States must provide its citizens with the best available health care. 

We must move to what is known as "single payer universal health care".  In simple language, this means basic coverage for all people.  We must make sure that everybody has a foundation, a safety net.  That we do not have this now is truly a national disgrace.

A coalition of prominent physicians, prominently including Stephanie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, and David U. Himmelstein, MD,  founders of Physicians for a National Health Program, has developed a sensible single-payer national health plan.  This plan has been introduced  to Congress by Cong. John Conyers as The United States National Health Insurance Act (HR676), ("Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Bill").

This plan, or something like it at a minimum, is essential to not only the future health of the citizens of our nation but also to the very health of the nation itself. The lack of a sane national health care policy is in large part responsible for the great difficulty American companies are having competing in the international marketplace.  Until this problem is solved, the problem of outsourcing and the flight of jobs will never be fully addressed.

In Michigan, increasing numbers of people are needing healthcare, and addressing this problem is necessary for the health of our economy as well as our citizenry.

The new congress will need to reexamine on a priority basis  the Medicare and Prescription Drug bill, and make adjustments to it so that it includes everybody who needs services.