[Peace-discuss] Letter to our Congressman

[C. G. Estabrook]

Representative Timothy V. Johnson
Illinois 15th Congressional District

Tim--

I was pleased to read in the News-Gazette (“Johnson plans to push to get 
troops out of Afghanistan,” by Tom Kacich, Tuesday September 22, 2009) 
that you are "working with a bipartisan group, including Reps. Ron Paul, 
R-Texas, Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, on ... 
Afghanistan withdrawal legislation."

 From Palestine to Pakistan the US is committing what the Nuremberg 
tribunal called "the supreme international crime" -- aggressive war. And 
not to "stop terrorism" -- it does just the opposite -- but for 
geopolitical advantage, by means of control of the area's energy 
resources. We must stop.

I was also pleased to see your opposition to the administration's 
"Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act" -- Sen. 
Baucus' health care reform bill, accurately called by an insurance 
company executive in Congressional testimony "an absolute gift to the 
industry."

Having recently reached the (ridiculously restrictive) age  for 
Medicare, I'm experiencing first-hand the obvious answer to the problem 
-- Medicare for all. The market capitalization of the publicly traded 
health insurers is about $150 billion. The federal government could 
purchase the lot of them for a fraction of the TARP funds -- under $200 
billion. The total administrative costs of the U.S. healthcare system -- 
greatly inflated by all the paperwork and second-guessing of doctors' 
decisions generated by the insurance industry -- are about $400 billion 
a year. Those administrative costs are about three times what a 
Canadian-style single-payer system would cost. So that means we'd save 
about $250 billion a year by eliminating the waste caused by our private 
insurance system. And the solution to the problem would pay for itself 
in well under a year.

That's much better than the Obama administration's expensive gimcrack plan.

Regards, Carl Estabrook