Reply #12: Tax high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oil, sure.

[Warren DeMontague]

Personally, though, I think we could EASILY fund a SPHC system if we straightened out our fucked-up spending priorities. We spend half a trillion a year on the Military/Industrial complex- more than every other nation on Earth COMBINED. Barring an invasion from Zeta Reticuli, I have to wonder if that sort of largesse is really warranted. And we have upwards of $400 Billion so far on Iraq.

Then, yes, we spend $40 Billion a year on a drug war aimed primarily at keeping cancer grannies and folks like Willie Nelson from smoking pot. AND we're paying above and beyond that to fund a massive prison-industrial gravy train so we can remain the number one per capita incarcerator of non-violent offenders in the developed world.

When the societal costs from Alcohol and Nicotine absolutely dwarf the societal costs from weed. And pot is the number one cash crop in many states. Legalize it, tax it, and plow that money into the SPHC kitty along with the taxes from other substances, like booze and cigarettes, that adults indulge in.

Lastly, the money spent on private health insurance in this country- if we took them out of the equation, along with the 20% profit margins they take off the top. All told, if we approached some of these larger issues with a measure of sanity, we could easily pay for a SPHC system IMHO.