PRESS RELEASE - Health Care Is a Defense Issue, Should Be Paid for by Cutting Military Budget

Midge Potts for Senate 2010

www.ElectMidge.com

Contact: Midge Potts

midge@electmidge.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 18th, 2010

Congress Should Rethink How to Pay for Health Care Reform

Health Care Is Defense Issue, Says US Senate Candidate Midge Potts

Springfield, MO - On Thursday, Missouri's Progressive/Green Candidate for US Senate, Midge Potts, released a statement admonishing Congress for wasting the past year on crafting a health care bill that is bloated and off target. The Co-Chair for Missouri's Progressive Party, who announced in June 2009 that she would seek the US Senate seat being vacated by Kit Bond, says that, since there seems to be no political will for instituting a single-payer not-for-profit system in America, Congress should have used the time spent creating the current comprehensive bill to pass individual bills that target specific reforms necessary for breathing life into America's ailing health care system. Potts also said that the means to pay for ensuring everyone in America has access to adequate health care should come from converting the military-nuclear-industrial complex rather that stealing money from the Medicare trust fund.

"Health care is a defense issue" Said Ms. Potts, "we would save more lives by recruiting an Army of Doctors than have been saved by any army the world has ever seen. Congress has spent over 5 trillion dollars on military spending over the last decade to maintain a modern day imperialism that includes hundreds of bases around the globe; it is obvious to me that we would not have to raise any taxes to pay for health care if we diverted just one-fifth of our military budget on providing health care for all." Potts added, "As the situation stands now, I would like to see Congress pass necessary insurance reforms immediately, then go back to work on how to systematically implement universal health care in a way that is transparent to the American people; it is wrong to pass legislation that contains thousands of pages through means such as 'reconciliation' and 'deem and pass', and I think it would be better to implement incremental changes that could be easily understood by the people whom such a bill proposes to help."

Midge Potts, co-chair of the Progressive Party of Missouri, is the party's candidate for U.S. Senator in 2010. She and other party members are circulating petitions to get Ms. Potts and other Progressive Party candidates on the Missouri ballot this year.

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