Our representatives have been bought by the insurance industry and big pharmaceuticals. Spending a million and a half dollars a day, these industries secure billions in profits.

Those billions in profits could help provide health care for the 49 million uninsured and the millions more underinsured and sure to be denied coverage on key health problems, by those insurance companies.

Get the profit and the insurance companies out. We need health-care rights and single-payer. We cannot afford imperial wars, but we can afford single-payer health care for all Americans.

Support Rep. Dennis Kucinich's bill to provide single-payer options for states. But with Congress solidly in the hands of the Democrats, they can pass whatever they will to do. The public needs to speak up now and demand universal single-payer health care. This is our moment to gain the health rights that every other developed country has given their own citizens.

Do not be fooled. Single-payer will help the majority of citizens, and not hurt us, the seniors.

Patricia Randolph, Portage