The main cause of our nation's economic crisis is the cost of health care.

Seventeen nations have solved their economic problems and improved health care through a single-payer system. The average cost of health care per capita in these nations is half of that in the United States; and their health care outcomes all are stronger than ours.

Single-payer systems are not unusual. Examples in our country can be found in the U.S. military, libraries and police and fire departments.

Health Insurance corporations - our current "payers" - take 37 percent of every health care dollar, either in profits or in the cost of dealing with them. The problem is that they provide no health care; no true service.

Their only job is to take our money in, and then try not to pay it out when we are sick or injured. They are the money changers in the temple of health care.

I doubt that there's an American alive today who doesn't know someone who has died (some would call it murder) because a health insurance company refused to pay out the money that the deceased person had paid into their system.

Corporations are dedicated to profits, not people, and that's why Americans pay more and get less, when it comes to health care.

It's time to save the economy of the United States. It's time for Americans to have a decent health care system. It's time to stop corporate killing. It's time for single-payer health care.

Mark Weiss

Corvallis