The Modern Day Barbarians

Dear Mr. President,

A report by the Institute on Medicine and the National Research Council on the health and longevity of Americans under age 50 is grim; we’re dead last among the 16 other developed countries in the study (including Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan). We are at or near the bottom of a 4-page list of health indicators: we have the 2^nd highest death rates from heart disease and lung disease, the highest rates of diabetes, obesity and infant mortality, and our children have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy and death from car crashes. The rate of firearm homicide is 20 times greater than the other countries and 69% of all homicide deaths in the U.S. involved firearms versus 26% in other countries. In the 1950s we scored above most of the other countries but in the 1980s (the era of Reagan) we began a long slide to the bottom. The report lists some obvious factors for this: a fragmented, inefficient and costly health care system in which tens of millions of our citizens are uninsured, lack of an adequate social safety net and the highest rate of poverty. It also suggests cultural factors such as individualism and dislike of government play a role and that our for-profit health care system is aggressively capitalistic and at odds with patient needs. I would add 3 other cultural factors: chemical additives that contaminate our food, the highest incarceration rate on earth, and an addiction to violence and war. In 2008 we voted for you because you sold yourself as the man who would rein in the military, end war, return to the rule of law and restore the social safety net. We thought you would protect entitlements not cut them, usher in single payer health care not enrich the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industries. We thought you would end war not expand it, cut the military budget not education, and restore the rule of law not ignore it. We never dreamed you would gut the Constitution, keep Guantanamo open and institutionalize targeted assassinations and terror around the world. So what does the healthcare study have to do with your betrayals? Lots. It is a mirror of ourselves: modern day barbarians, ruthless, violent and ignorant. We plunder the planet and each other without regard for the consequences and we are paying the price in reduced longevity, poor health and mental instability. And it will only grow worse until someone comes along who will do what you promised in 2008.