{"id":1730,"date":"2009-08-12T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2009\/08\/yes_were_still_counting\/"},"modified":"2009-08-12T08:00:25","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T15:00:25","slug":"yes_were_still_counting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2009\/08\/yes_were_still_counting.html","title":{"rendered":"Yes, We&#8217;re Still Counting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/www.costofwar.com\/costofwar-embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<font color=#800000><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"> #costOfWarTotal { text-align: center; width: 270px; font-weight: bold; } #costOfWarTotal_Total { font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; color: #990000; } #costOfWarTotal_Link { font-size: .7em; } <\/style>\n<p><\/FONT><\/p>\n<div id=\"costOfWarTotal\"> <script language=\"JavaScript\">  initCostOfTotal(); updateCostOfTotal(100); <\/script> <\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oughta put the cost of U.S. healthcare reform into perspective.<br \/>Reform would cost $900 billion to $1 trillion over the next 10 years.<br \/>Which does the American majority prefer &#8212; taking lives or saving lives?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Consider this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalpriorities.org\/tradeoffs?location_type=4&#038;state=36&#038;town=0.033408309000000000000000000000&#038;program=585&#038;tradeoff_item_item=286&#038;submit_tradeoffs=Get+Trade+Off\">trade-off<\/a>: Taxpayers in New York City, where I live, will pay $30.6 billion for total war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. That amount of money could have paid for an entire year&#8217;s worth of health care for 5,637,896 people, more than half the city&#8217;s population.<\/p>\n<p>Or how about Elkhart, Indiana? &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/bloomberg\/20090805\/pl_bloomberg\/a8xwu46zco1k\">Hammered by the recession<\/a>,&#8221; it became Barack Obama&#8217;s &#8220;symbol of the need for his stimulus plan.&#8221; Taxpayers in Elkhart <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalpriorities.org\/tradeoffs?location_type=4&#038;state=18&#038;town=0.000108950000000000000000000000&#038;program=585&#038;tradeoff_item_item=286&#038;submit_tradeoffs=Get+Trade+Off\">will pay $99.7 million<\/a> for spending on both wars since 2001. That could have provided 29,533 people with health care for an entire year.<\/p>\n<p>Have a look <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalpriorities.org\/tradeoffs?location_type=4&#038;state=999&#038;town=999&#038;program=585&#038;tradeoff_item_item=286&#038;submit_tradeoffs=Get+Trade+Off\">your own community&#8217;s trade-off.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<FONT SIZE=\"-2\">According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalpriorities.org\/about\">National Priorities Project<\/a>, the counter indicates all of the approved funding to date for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to this approved amount, the FY2010 budget shows a $130 billion request for more war spending. This would bring total war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan to more than $1 trillion. When all FY2010 war-related amounts are approved, the counter will be adjusted so that it indicates the new totals at the end of FY2010.<\/FONT><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/jan-herman\/yes-were-still-counting_b_257328.html\">(Crossposted at HuffPo)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oughta put the cost of U.S. healthcare reform into perspective.Reform would cost $900 billion to $1 trillion over the next 10 years.Which does the American majority prefer &#8212; taking lives or saving lives? Consider this trade-off: Taxpayers in New York City, where I live, will pay $30.6 billion for total war spending in Iraq and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-rU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}