Military Spending Overshadows Health Care

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The price tag for the Iraq War is set to rise to nearly $589 billion – more than was spent on the Vietnam War. To meet these costs, spending on Medicare and Medicaid will be further slashed by $78.6 billion over the next five years. Medicare recipients will also have to pay higher premiums for prescription drugs and doctors' services, and  annual indexing of income thresholds will be eliminated, which in effect means another $10 billion in cuts. Millions more will be cut from programs directly benefitting children. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The U.S. is now ranked 37th in the world when it comes to health care indicators.

This is truly a budget of "guns before butter". The colossal economic cost of the war has a direct effect on spending on social programs here at home.  Just think how far $589 billion would go toward providing jobs, health care, education, and housing. With that money you could provide health coverage for the entire country and train millions more nurses.

There's no two ways about it.  Either our money goes towards providing necessities such as free universal health care for all, or it can go toward lining the pockets of military and "reconstruction" contractors like Raytheon and Halliburton.

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