The ‘Institute for Middle East Understanding’ is a pro-Palestinian education group that focuses on human rights, which surveyed over 1,200 Republicans in the United States who were under the age of 45. Three out of every four of those polled preferred that the billions of dollars given as weapons to Israel every year be instead used on healthcare in the United States. The same polling data from the pro-Palestinian research group also says that those same Republicans still favor supporting Israel over Palestine. This suggests that the data show that ‘young’ Republicans do think of Israel as important, just not as important as healthcare upkeep and reform.

It is also true that recently, the Department of Veterans Affairs plans to cut around 35,000 jobs from its total workforce, which is a temporary reduction from the originally planned 83,000 firings and layoffs. In March, the American Legion estimated that 80,000 job cuts would put 20,000 veterans out of work. For perspective, Methodist Hospital in Omaha employs 2,400 people (per their website). Firing 35,000 people is akin to closing more than 14 fully staffed VA hospitals. Still, one could come to wonder just how much stress nurses and doctors are under, and how much more stress would be applied across the whole VA-hospital system, with not just a cut of 35,000 workers (from desk jockeys, receptionists, new nurse hires, to maintenance and food staff, among many others). How many more mistakes will be made by a medical professional with an extra hour of work and one less hour of sleep? Or two fewer hours of sleep for more responsibilities piled onto them?

According to the CDC, there are over 100,000 medical professionals in the United States who can be scheduled for ‘extended-duration shifts’ (EDS), which are longer than 24 hours. In the American Journal of Medicine study (volume 138), they reported that 17,498 physicians-in-training worked around 4 EDS days a year. A study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that during 24-hour shifts, interns made 35.9 more serious medical errors than they would have during a normal shift, “including 55.6 non-intercepted serious errors.” Critical Care Units saw a 22% jump in serious errors during those 24-hour shifts. On an adjacent topic of sleep deprivation, the CDC has reported that one-third of people in the U.S. are not getting enough sleep.

Militarytimes.com reported on nurses who are protesting over the staffing cuts in San Diego, California, a city that over 230,000 veterans call home. Nurse Andrea Johnson questioned, “What happens if you cut housekeeping staff, and it falls to us to get rooms cleaned?... If dietary staff are cut, will nurses have to take on the responsibility to deliver meal trays? Who is going to handle scheduling to make sure a bed is available?”

While pointedly something like delivering a meal tray seems small, it is the broad and continuing shuffling of many duties onto nurses from a plethora of roles that could otherwise alleviate the burden, especially on 24-hour-plus EDS days.

Currently, Congress is “debating" in its schoolyard way whether or not to extend tax credits for lower-income Americans. It is the conservative view, as per usual, that one person’s taxes shouldn’t pay for another person's struggles, inabilities, or misfortunes – except when that person’s inability, struggle, or misfortune is running a bank, the auto-industry, farmers, or businesses. As much as a conservative or even a democrat might say they don't support such action by the politicians they vote in, they keep voting in the same people who bail out -just- the wealthy. How tenuous is the ground a voter would stand on, should they vote against a politician who would extend tax credits for poorer Americans, yet vote for a politician who would give taxpayer money to an already rich man who made a sloppy, or greedy business decision? Especially where the poorer person is asking for help with their health, while the wealthy one will not die for their choice?

The healthcare and hospital system in the United States is fundamentally broken, and it is not because there is a lack of a better option, but instead because our politicians are fundamentally broken. They may enter office with visions of upholding American values and American honor, intending to require price transparency for hospitals and insurance companies, and then the companies can bribe officials with “campaign donations" to make sure that the problem is kicked down the road in the usual fashion.

The prices aren't real either. Between a plethora of people being charged money after labor for holding their own baby, or being charged many thousands for an ambulance ride, only for insurance companies and hospitals to be able to ‘negotiate’ with each other for what one owes the other, insurance, hospitals, and pharmaceuticals in the United States is an entirely fake economy. Such an economy is a house of cards, supported not just by taxpayers but also by greedy politicians taking bribes so that the whole process can be kept obfuscated. It is not hard to wonder why our Veterans and our poor have such a difficult time with the whole house-of-cards.

Republicans do decry, and rightfully so, that the whole system is broken; neither they nor the Democrats have instituted any meaningful change, even though now a majority of Americans believe that it is the government's responsibility to reform the healthcare system in the United States. Better and cheaper healthcare now means fewer diseases have gone unmissed, and more babies are born healthy and well. Financial burdens on the poorest in any nation lead to higher crime rates.

Brookings.edu reported that after the Affordable Care Act, violent crime in the United States fell by 5.8%, especially among the poorest Americans who did not have access to insurance beforehand. Lower violent crime means more people are safe, and able to contribute to this test we call democracy.

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.