My Answers on the Health Issues

The pendulum has swung too far in the managed care environment. In an effort to reduce health care costs, we have deprived the sick from honest-to-goodness health care by placing profits above patients' needs. We have gone from a money-is-no-object health care program, to a "give them less than minimum care for maximum profits program."

Today, patients are denied care because administrators, not physicians, say they don't need care. Physicians are the experts on who needs care and who does not need care - and their decisions should not be based on how it affects the profit or loss of the HMOs. As a result, we have needless pain and suffering, a hopeless attitude among patients toward the health care providers, and a growing fear in our society of getting sick or becoming injured. Patients who endure three or four hours of surgery are sent home the same day because the HMOs are trying to be "cost conscious". Yet, if you look at the salaries of HMO personnel, can they really say they are cost conscious? You cannot lump all HMOs together. We do need to find a solution to the crisis in health care and the pendulum must find its way toward the center. The ideal center is more than adequate health care, with responsible and just cost controls.

What about the medically uninsured?

Why is it that we have to pay insurance for uninsured motorists, but yet, those who through no fault of their own, such as layoffs, cannot purchase health insurance at affordable rates? Isn't it about time the Federal Government stepped in and threatened insurance companies with lawsuits, wherever possible, if they don't fill in these gaps in coverage?

Assisted Suicides

The right to die (assisted suicide) is not a God-given right and is a violation of Divine laws. We cannot be one nation under God if we violate God's laws. This would be in direct opposition to our Constitution which was designed to promote, not to oppose, God's laws.

Neither the utility of life nor the quality of life should be a consideration in determining whether a person lives or dies. The determining consideration in all cases must be the sanctity of life. One can preserve the sanctity of life by using pain medications, for example, even if those medications would cause imminent death, since the purpose of the medication is to remove the pain, and not to cause the death of the patient. This is not the same thing as a mercy killing, since killing in this case is not the object. I would veto any legislation that would allow mercy killing or assisted suicide because it violates God's divine and natural laws.

Foreign Policy

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

When the leader of Communist China visited our country several years ago, the first words he gave to the news media were "I come here to America with two hands. The hand of peace - and the hand of war. Which one do you want? I cannot give you both!"

My foreign policy will based on the same Chinese philosophy. Any nation that deals with us will be either a friend or foe. If they are a friend, we expect reciprocity in trade, social contacts and in general, we will be friends to each other, benefitting each other. If countries refuse us the same markets we extend to them, they are not our friends and I will treat them as foes, economically, and so forth.

If countries aim missiles at us, we will aim twice as many at them, and let them know in no uncertain terms, that it will not pay for them to threaten us, for we will consider all threats as though they were acts of aggression.

NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

I would support worldwide control of the dissemination of nuclear weapons and the START-2, START-3 treaties. Hopefully, we will have a START-4 treaty. START-2 would call for the reduction of nuclear warheads to 3500 by the year 2007, and would go beyond that for the others. I would emphasize that these treaties would be contingent on verifiable implementation procedures. It's nice to agree to arms reductions, but if they are not verifiable, they are meaningless. I would hope that we can eventually complete a START-3 and -4 agreement whereby all nuclear weapons are removed from the face of the earth and nations can work in peace and harmony to help each other rather than to destroy each other. Nuclear proliferation creates international paranoia and is non-conducive to international peace and harmony. Rather than bomb bridges, the international community must build bridges, bridges across languages and culture, bridges that allow for religious tolerance and the propagation of human rights, while recognizing the sovereignty of each nation.

I would encourage the United Nations to work toward those goals, while de-emphasizing the need to use the United Nations as a peacekeeping body and emphasizing its tremendous potential as a peace spreading body, a knowledge and culture spreading body, and a body that promotes international good will and the enjoyment of freedom and liberty by all of God's children in every part of the world.

WORLD TERRORISM

I believe that the United States, cannot afford to be the world policeman. American servicemen and women are not called to duty to become hired soldiers that will go anywhere in the world to promote law and order. That is the function of sovereign governments. Our commitments by law are bound by those treaties we signed with the United Nations and other nations such as those who belong to NATO to protect our mutual interests in the North Atlantic. At the same time, we need our Eastern European friends in order to create trading partners which would facilitate an economic revolution throughout Europe that would bring peace and prosperity to that part of the world. There is no greater incentive to world peace than a healthy international economy where all nations would flourish not only in trade, but in the arts, the sciences and the humanities. We need our Asian partners from Japan, China, India, and we need to bring our African brothers and sisters into a world trade partnership, not just with the United States, but with all countries.

The economic power that we are losing, because of conflicts on all continents, is hurting the standard of living worldwide, and the standard of morality as well, for when others suffer, we all suffer. No man nor nation is an island unto itself. One of my black brothers once remarked to me that when you are poor, it is difficult to be moral. Nations that are starving to death cannot think of morality, they cannot think of what is right, or what is wrong. They must think of feeding their starving children and themselves. And so, instead of helping to cure disease and eliminate famine, world conflicts bring more disease and more starvation. Instead, let us teach the underdeveloped countries how to help themselves. In the long run, teaching them how to grow crops and produce goods by providing the necessary tools and equipment, will help reverse the trend of a geometrically increasing population and a decreasing source of food production. We will then be making them independent instead of making them codependents. Instead of nuclear proliferation, we must develop a new mindset, one that looks at the urgency of world famine and how to solve it, rather than looking at how we can destroy each other.

Countries that promote terrorism against us through training terrorists and who eventually commit terrorist acts, will find that those countries will suffer fast and furious strikes against them, even though the terrorists may have committed suicide or could not be apprehended.

God is infinite joy. Neither you nor I can do anything to make God happier nor can we make God sad. On the other hand, we have the power to create our own happiness or our own sadness. We can build bombs, chemical or biological weapons, and thereby destroy planet earth, or we can build those bridges I mentioned earlier that unite our international community.

You who are reading these words are the ones who are going to decide which path we are going to choose. Do you want to build bombs, or do you want to build bridges? If you want to build bombs, I am not the man to be your next president. If you want to build bridges across international languages and cultures, then let us start now, you and I, and with God's help, let us go forward into the 21st century -

TO SAVE THE FUTURE ! ! ! !

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