I must agree with Kevin Floore in his letter to the editor. It is time for Democrats and Republicans like Kahne to stop taking swipes at the candidates and start debating policy. With less than 60 days before the election, it is time that undecided voters become decided. I would suggest that the Kernel do a side-by-side comparison of the candidates now, and maybe more students will register to vote. I am a fervent supporter of Barack Obama but I will only talk about one issue important to me — healthcare.

The healthcare system in this country is broken and it needs an overhaul, like Obama is in favor of, and not minor adjustments that address symptoms and not the root of the problem. A step toward socialized medicine is in the best interest of this country and I will use two examples: Medicare and the Veterans Affairs Hospitals.

According to the book “Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Healthcare is better than yours” by Phillip Longman, Medicare has the lowest administrative cost of any healthcare organization, less than 3 percent. This is compared to 12 percent in the private sector. The limitations of Medicare prevent overuse of treatment and wasteful spending that is also common in the private sector. Medicare uses tax dollars so all information is public record and this prevents abuse, again something that the private sector does not do.

The VA Hospitals are constantly ranked higher than their private sector counter parts in 294 “measures of quality”, according to Longman. He also notes that the VA has higher percentages of patients with cancer, diabetes, smoking and mental illness, yet still manages to rank better in both patient satisfaction and medical treatment.

The VA has a system based on electronic medical records that is unparalleled in healthcare. This system helps in limiting medical errors, which every year kill as many as 98,000 people (imagine 3 jumbo jets crashing every other day). The VA focuses on prevention when private sector hospitals have no economic interest in doing so, according to the book.

Socialized medicine is the step we need to take in this country, maybe not because healthcare is a human right and maybe not even because it is good public policy, but simply because you cannot argue with the facts.

Robert Oakley

UK Graduate Student