Did you know?

Socialized medicine is a term invented by the health insurance industry to defeat Harry Truman's attempt to reform health care.

Rep. John Boehner, the House minority leader, said, "We have the greatest health care system in the world." (The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Sept. 17). In fact it is excessively expensive, ineffective and unjust.

More than 20,000 U.S. citizens each year die of curable diseases for lack of health care.

The World Health Organization, rating the quality and fairness of national health care systems, found that the richest nation in the world -- that would be the United States -- ranks 37th, just behind Dominica and Costa Rica, and just ahead of Slovenia and Cuba.

If you haven't yet read T.R. Reid's "The Healing of America," perhaps it's time you did.

Bruce Macdonald

Seven Lakes West