October 26, 2004
Tuesday

I decided long ago that John Kerry would be a better president than George Bush. We need a new president because we need to change the course of this country. We need a new president because we need our country to be fiscally healthy with more jobs that pay better. We need a new president to ensure that everyone in this country will have health insurance. And, we need a new president because George W. Bush has not been truthful with the American people.

America ought to join every other industrialized country in the world and have health care for all our people. As a physician, I am concerned that over the past three years, a larger number of Americans are finding it more and more expensive to buy less and less health care. I am concerned that 43 million Americans still do not have health insurance and since George W. Bush has been president, the cost of family health insurance has increased by more than $3,500. John Kerry has said that one of his first priorities would be to focus on the health care crisis. He has a realistic plan that will provide affordable health care for 95 percent of Americans, including every child. For example, he wants to cut prescription drug costs and allow drugs from Canada to be easily obtained. And, he wants Americans to be able to have a greater choice of health care plans, just like members of Congress. John Kerry's plan is not full of empty promises - it is practical and affordable.

America has to stop the "borrow and spend" philosophy that is so prevalent in Washington. Not one Republican President since 1968 has ever balanced a budget. John Kerry, like Bill Clinton before him, will give our children the fiscal discipline we deserve, which will lead to job growth. President Bush ran up the largest deficit in American history, therefore forcing our children to be financially responsible for his senselessness. John Kerry will balance the budget. He has an extensive plan to cut the deficit in half in four years. In order to accomplish this, one thing he will do is to reverse the special interest tax cuts President Bush implemented that only affected big corporations and families making more than $200,000 a year. John Kerry will ensure that future generations do not have to pay for George Bush's mistakes.

America can restore its moral leadership at home and abroad with John Kerry as our president. At his core, John Kerry is a truthful person. He has told us what he thinks, sometimes to his detriment, but we know what he believes. George W. Bush has not been truthful with the American people. He has endangered America by creating a crisis in Iraq where there was not one before we invaded. He has misled us on the deficits, on jobs, on health care, on public education and on prescription drugs for the elderly. He appears to stand for little that is not dictated by polls.

America is the greatest nation on the face of the earth. We are a great people - Republicans as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals. America deserves the kind of leadership that will give us back our position as a moral leader in the world. I believe that President Kerry will be that kind of leader.

Howard Dean, M.D. and former governor of Vermont, is the founder of Democracy for America, a grassroots organization that supports socially progressive and fiscally responsible political candidates.

 

 

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