Tax can pay for universal healthcare. In the UK we have this. We don't value it enough. In the USA, as Barack Obama has pointed out, 45 million people including 9 million children have no health insurance. Health crises are the biggest cause of bankruptcy in the USA.

How can universal health provision be paid for? Simple:

The experts also said Obama could pay for his plan mostly through steps that the candidate has already said he would take -- allowing President Bush's tax cuts on dividends and capital gains and on those making more than about $250,000 a year to expire in 2010 instead of acting to make them permanent.

The rest of the $65 billion funding could come by raising taxes on inheritances worth more than $7 million. Many Democrats want to repeal Bush's elimination of taxes on estates worth more than $1 million. Obama wants the exemption to be higher but has not yet said exactly where it should be set.

And the benefit?

Obama said the typical consumer would save $2,500 a year on premiums.

That's what taxation can do. Tell me something that could do more for America. I think you'll find it hard (and note: George Bush is going, so that's not on your menu).

I call this tax justice, by the way. It's using progressive taxation to achieve social benefit for all citizens. The boost to US confidence from having not to worry about healthcare would be phenomenal.

It could be the same worldwide. That's why I believe in the power of tax.