Ladera Ranch has some of the hardest working, highest achieving, results oriented women I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a few in my life, including my mother and her mother, my sisters, and my wife and daughters, all high achieving professional women in their own right. 

Each issue of the Ladera Times is filled with story upon story of Ladera Ranch women achieving great things, building things, creating things, making a major contribution to their community . . . and raising thousands and thousands of dollars for charities, mostly involving children and their need for health care. So with this as background, I write this editorial appeal directly to the women of Ladera Ranch . . . and the men too!

Some 40 million Americans are without health insurance, the vast majority of which are children. An article in Sunday’s Parade magazine stated that 12,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year alone. Statistically speaking, well over 2,000 of these children will get poor health care, if any at all, and, if left untreated, cancer becomes a death sentence.

But that’s just cancer. There are millions of American children suffering from childhood disorders, such as juvenile diabetes, autism, and muscular dystrophy, to name a few. And far too many of them do not have the health insurance coverage necessary to ensure that they receive the treatment they deserve, ergo the massive fundraising efforts by the women of Ladera Ranch. If every child (and adult) was guaranteed health care under a national health care program, these fundraising efforts could be devoted to addressing other serious societal needs.

Many politicians say, at a cost of $80 to $120 billion a year, we can’t afford a national health care plan, but we’re spending over $300 billion a year in a senseless war in Iraq. Another $120 billion has been spent thus far in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with little results to show for it. This is money that could have been avoided had the Federal government spent $16 billion to fix the levies in the first place, money the government said we couldn’t afford at the time.

This doesn’t take into account the hundreds of billions spent by Congress each year on wasteful pork-barrel projects, such as the half-billion-dollar bridge to nowhere in Alaska. And, the truth is, hospitals and doctors pass the costs of treating the uninsured through to those with health insurance in the form of higher medical fees, so those of us with insurance are already paying the bill.

Some politicians use the term "socialized medicine" so as to scare Americans into thinking we are giving up our democratic form of government, but the government has many "social programs," such as Social Security, the Interstate highway program, and free K-12 education, to name a few without giving up our freedoms.

Some politicians say that medical care under a national health care plan would be inferior, although that remains to be seen; the British, French, and Canadians seem to like their plans.

But what may be inferior to people who already have insurance may be a Godsend to people who have no health care coverage at all. And individuals still would be free to purchase greater health care coverage if they wished, not to mention that many employers would continue to offer health care insurance in order to be competitive in hiring the talent they need.

I don’t know how these politicians sleep at night knowing that 40 million Americans, the majority of which are children, do not have health care coverage, especially when they have voted themselves the mother of all health care plans.

This is not a conservative vs liberal issue, or a "red state vs blue state" debate. This is a human issue! And the solution is simple. Let’s all write to our U.S. Congress members and Senators and insist they provide the same health care coverage for all Americans that they have provided for themselves.

The following are direct links to our two U.S. Senators from California, and Congressman Ken Calvert who represents the 44th Congressional District, which includes Ladera Ranch.,