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Why 79 Million People Don't Count

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Douglas g
Message Grant Lawrence

....79 million adults are struggling to pay health-care bills....
From The Commonwealth Fund, Losing Ground: How the Loss of Adequate Health Insurance Is Burdening Working Families.

So some might think that these are 79 million slackers or people that are just too lazy to realize the American dream. That is, you might think so unless you were one of the 79 million people that have struggled to pay health care bills. At some point in 2007, 50 million people were without health care coverage.

Were these struggling Americans any less important than the rest of the American people?

Of course not. But you would think that a lot of these 79 million people vote and that the politicians would be highly motivated to serve their interests.

But in reality, we have a government unresponsive to the will of most of its people. Ever wonder why our government maintains the same type of corporatist/globalist policies no matter who controls Congress or the Presidency? The reason is because politicians know that the money is in the hands of the few, and those few are the only ones that really matter to them. Politics is driven by money and politicians like to grow their millions for themselves and their campaigns. In order for politicians to grow rich they have to have as their main concern the will of the few wealthy elite that feed them.

So 79 million Americans don't matter much in the political world precisely because "just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%, leaving only 16% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth, the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 39.7%"

If you are in the top 1% of wealth owners in this country, then you can feel good about a government that is working for you. But for the rest of Americans, we need to understand that the top 1% is not going to represent the interests of the average American, like the 79 million struggling because of health care bills. Or if you are part of America with mounting bills "thirty-nine percent of people said they had depleted their savings to pay off bills; 29 percent were having problems paying for food, heat, rent and other basic necessities; and 30 percent had accumulated credit card debt."

In the future, the political system will likely stay the same and the millions of Americans that are uninsured, underinsured, or struggling to pay for health care will likely get some sham health care system that will serve corporate interests and not their own. As long as the American people fail to realize that the political system is set up to serve the few real owners of their country, then it won't be too surprising to see a health care system (or any societal structure) that doesn't serve the larger interests of the American people.

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