We're spending close to 15% of our GNP on health care compared to the average Europen country at just 8% of the GNP and guess what???

People, on the average, live longer and are healthier in Europe...

The amin reason that our health care costs have escalated so much under Bush is because of the rip-off pharmeceauical companies that Bush is protecting...

Heck, he's even put the clamps on the American people being able to get their med from other countries???

Oh, and lets not forget the inmsurance companies who will soon be raking in the big bucks from the Medicaid perscription plan that insurance companies and drug company's lobbiests wrote for the Republican Congress to rubber stamp...

Now, back to this issue of poverty...

Yes, one can be poor and live a happy life... Lotta country folks do... They grow their own food... Heat with wood and have ahppy lives...

It is also true that one born into poverty can escape from it, better themselves economically and move up the ladder but with that said...

... it doesn't happen with a large majority of inner city black kids and, no mattrer, the systems aren't in place for that to happen...

70% of black males in Baltimore City don't complete high school... That's not going to bode well for too many of them breking the cycle...

No, what we need is like a "Marshall Plan" for our own cities...

Bobert