As an American I, too, “...have never understood the US spending trillions fighting useless wars at the expense of their own people’s health and education.” Thank you, Ricardo, for stating the obvious fact - and one that we cannot seem to get through to our leaders, no matter who they are or what they promise during their campaigns.

Mr. Sirota stated: “Those problems, of course, are often more expensive to therapeutically treat in adults than to pre-emptively address in kids. That means any short-term savings achieved by cuts to children’s health care will likely be wiped out by much bigger costs as those less-healthy kids enter adulthood. And don’t forget: Those additional marginal costs are everyone’s concern because they often end up being paid by Medicare (aka taxpayers).”

In fact, these costs, if paid at all, will first be paid by Medicaid, also aka taxpayers. And Medicaid is even more austere in its coverage than Medicare - which is saying something. If you are eligible, by dent of extreme poverty, to receive medicaid, what you do receive will most often amount to health care only in the event of health crisis. Preventive care via Medicaid is not the norm. Not now, not ever.

The premise of this article is that the financial resources of this country will suffer more strain in the future if we do not provide adequate care for our children in the present. I agree wholeheartedly that we can prevent illnesses in our populations down the road if we provide adequate healthcare for children here and now. And I believe we ought to do this and can afford to do this - if only we can stop wasting money on killing people we don’t know in faraway places to which we have never been.

I don’t much agree with the conclusion that denying healthcare to children now will contribute to deficit problems in the future, for the simple reason that so many people in this country even now are forced to live with illnesses as they come along and either recover or not. These people experience little to no medical intervention, because they are too poor to go to a doctor. The burden this situation currently imposes on hospital emergency rooms across the country is small by comparison to what it would be if every poor person who experienced illness took either themselves or their children to the ER to cope with health problems that could just as well be treated in a doctor’s office - and at much less expense.

I didn’t read this somewhere. I lived this for most of my adult life. I lived it with my child who also lived it. I lived it while working very hard for a pittance of a wage and it shows in my health now, after a lifetime of simply enduring the reality of healthcare as it really is in the richest country on the planet. It shows in my son’s health as well.

Over time, over extended relentless time, struggling to make too-short ends meet, giving an honest day’s labor to your employer everyday and receiving in return much less than an honest day’s wage - your resilience wears down - kind of like the tread on a worn tire. Your ability to bounce back from the insults to your body and spirit diminishes. You start to skid all over the place, as it were.

The worst of it though is how dispensable we are. Do you really think the fast food joint you got lunch at will give a damn if the man who washed windows and picked up trash in the parking lot becomes seriously ill or dies? There are 20 or 30 people waiting for his job and that fast food joint won’t miss a beat or lose a single dollar. And neither will the US Treasury.

If you are one of the uncharitable souls who think the working poor in this country don’t contribute much and don’t deserve any better than they get, consider what life would be like if all the working poor just quit. Not everything we need or want comes from China yet.

hello. stealth programs have infinite survivability.
protest about high taxes, and immediately politicians
strike back with heart-tearing, senior-scaring threats
... about what they must cut. we need to seriously cut
the taxes, and regain control. they are cruel, corrupt,
heartless, arrogant, chilling, shameless, wasteful,
crony, greedy bastards. flush and plunge incumbent
politicians. even the good ones let this go on: black
collar criminals- every one.

We have a deficit in leadership. But I blame the American people not the government, because the government belongs to the people. That Makes us responsible for this mess. But all we do is talk and complain. So we created and earned this mess. We either deal with it or it will continue to dispense with us.

“WAKE UP AMERICA!” - JOIN THE REVOLUTION
Read “Common Sense 3.1” at ( http://www.revolution2.osixs.org )

FIGHT THE CAUSE - NOT THE SYMPTOM
We don’t have to live like this anymore. “Spread the News”

Ricardo,

America has, for generations, have used military might as a measure of our national prosperity. And like the Romans, Dutch, Spanish, and English before us, we have been somewhat correct for about 60 years. But now, as it is plain to see, our chickens have come home to roost, and they bring with them bird flu and crushing debt that will never, I repeat, never be paid.

We have backed ourselves into a corner, and no amount of job creating prosperity is ever going to allow us to pay our bills. We stopped investing in our infrastructure about 30 years ago, and we are now fraying at the edges.

Can we assume that Republican politicians would
withhold health care for their own children if it meant
reducing the deficit?

Conservatives don’t give a crap about the so-called deficit.  They care about only one thing: stealing the workers money.