How We Can Kick-Start the Economy, Save Lives, Give Working People a Raise and Turn a Deficit into a Surplus

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on May 15, 2011, Printed on May 17, 2011

It won't make you better looking, stop climate change or result in world peace, but progressives in Congress are pushing a bill that would prove a cure for much of the economic pain we're suffering. If passed, it would save lives, make American companies more competitive, put more cash in our pockets and turn those deficits everyone's obsessing over into surpluses as far as the eye can see.

This week, Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, introduced the American Health Security Act of 2011(S. 915 in the Senate and HR 1200 in the House), a bill that would create a state-based system similar to Medicare but open to Americans of all ages.