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[Orwellian_Ghost]

SOCIAL AND HEALTH INEQUALITY IN "THE BEACON TO THE WORLD OF THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE"

So how do the nation's priorities stand nearly four decades later? More than 36 million residents of the United States, which US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) calls "the beacon to the world of the way life should be," languish beneath the federal government's notoriously low poverty level ($14,680 for a family of three in 2003). More than 11 million or 17 percent of US children live below that sorry measure, and the US child poverty rate is substantially higher than that of other industrialized nations. More than one in three US children live in or near poverty and more than 8 million Americans live in homes that frequently skip meals or eat too little. Suicide takes the lives of 30,000 Americans each year. It is a high-ranking cause of death for 10-14 year olds, 15-19 year olds, and 20-24 year olds in "the beacon to the world."

More than 42 million Americans lack health coverage. The "beacon" is still the only modern industrialized state without a universal, socially inclusive health insurance plan. Reflecting one part of a broadly shocking disconnect between regressive policy and fairly progressive public opinion in "America, the best democracy money can buy," nearly two-thirds of the homeland's populace actually supports "a universal system that would provide coverage to everyone under a government program" (Will Lester, "Poll: Public supports Health Care for All," Washington Post, 19 October 2003).

Even though it's world the second richest country (after Norway) in terms of per-capita wealth, the US ranks below 24 other nations in life expectancy.

Part of the explanation for this seeming anomaly lay in the astonishing over-concentration of wealth in the US, where the top 1 percent owns more than 40 percent of the wealth.

The top 10 percent owns two-thirds of US wealth, leaving the rest of us --- 90 percent of the population - to fight it out for one third of the nation's assets.

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http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=7902§ionID=10

Awaken others to these hard facts as well.