By Gema G. Hernández

It is important for the American public to stay focused despite the efforts of spin doctors and political advertisements trying to detract our attention from important domestic issues that if not properly addressed will lower our quality of life.

The next president of the United States will be facing tremendous domestic challenges that we are not being addressed, challenges in the number of uninsured families, challenges in the reduction of Medicare benefits to our elders and the increase in prescription drug costs, challenges in the shortage of teachers for our children and the resources available for education, challenges in the HIV epidemic that continues to impact this country and the increase in health disparity outcomes between the rich and the poor and challenges in the decline of Social Security contributions, partially the result of outsourcing jobs to other countries and increases in the number of retirees and challenges in our country’s ability to support our veterans and their families.

Our taxes have provided massive financial aid to Afghanistan and Iraq, but we have failed to provide massive financial support to Medicare and to Health Care in general. We have failed to secure the solvency of Social Security for generations to come and instead used the Social Security Trust Fund to finance wars. This election is not about free elections in Afghanistan or the departure of Saddam Hussein from power. This election is about the survival of our American way of life with equal opportunities for all. What is at stake is not education to Iraqi women even though they deserve equal access to education, jobs and security. What is at stake is the survival of our way of life, one unified country under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

At stake are our democratic traditions for free press, free speech and the freedom to pursue happiness. These are the issues that are being threatened and should be publicly debated. The security of our elders and frail individuals is diminishing because they are no longer protected by the safety net our forefathers built for us, but instead of talking about how in the last four years that safety net has been eradicated, we continue to focus in the wrong topic and this is definitely the wrong time to do it.

The American family is in danger not because of a physical terrorist attack but because of the policies of elected officials that are trying to place on the shoulders of the family all the burdens of the world from family caregiving without government help to health care paid and financed exclusively by our own medical saving accounts.

The American way of life is being threatened by the deep divisions that exist in the country today and by the fanatic religious beliefs that make everything different from our own unacceptable. This is not the American way, however, this is how terrorists can win their supreme victory, not by destroying buildings and killing thousands of innocent people, but by destroying our credibility in the world, and most importantly, by dividing this country in such a way that the deep cuts will never heal. We need to stay focused on the real issues; our survival as a nation depends on that. We need to eliminate the miniscule interpretation of one word, and look at the big picture.

The time is now for the American voters to make sure that the massive financial support we provide Afghanistan and Iraq is at least equal to the massive financial support we need to provide our Veterans and soldiers. It is clear that the only issue that unifies this nation is the need to properly support our soldiers and our veterans. Therefore, we should debate how to better serve them. Coincidentally, enlisted men and women are coming from middle class and poor families. Our soldiers and veterans deserve not only pay and benefit increases, but financial support upon their return home; after all they are the true heroes in our society. To be focused on this election means focusing on veterans and soldiers’ health care. How can we continue to support health clinics in Afghanistan and Iraq when our own veterans have to wait months to obtain their much needed health services?

In this election we need to stay focused, focused in where we are going and focused in what would make our American values stay strong.