Health Care vs. Homeland Security

Alright--first, a note for those of you who don't want to read another political entry. I am thinking about learning Esperanto. I have decided to learn it on the condition that at least five other people will learn it with me, so it will actually have a tiny bit of practical worth. Let me know if you are interested.
on to the post!

Alright, if you will permit me to be a cold and calculated utilitarian for a minute, I would like to illustrate why, even if you give them all the benefit of the doubt, given $x amount of money, it would be smarter to put it towards Universal health care than homeland security. But, in keeping with my promise of giving them the benefit of the doubt, let's call it "Socialized Medicine", so they can have the rhetorical advantage as well.

Ok. So. According to the Institute of Medicine, 18,000 Americans died from lack of health insurance in 2002. Now, I take the IOM as being a credible institute (it is non-partisan, and all of their studies are subject to blind peer-review by scientists).
But a conservative may be able to find some reason why this study was biased. So let's lower that number to 12,000. Cutting it by a third seems very generous to me.
Now, selecting the number of estimated Americans who actually died from not having health insurance is giving another benefit of the doubt to conservatives. Because the figures of who doesn't have insurance and why is controversial--illegal immigrants are sometimes included in the count, as well as people eligible for government programs who just don't sign up. But we will ignore the fact that besides flat out death, not having health insurance decreases quality of life as well.
(An interesting analysis of this can be found here.)
Ok, so let's take our next step of helping our conservative friends out. The conservatives may say, "Well, yes. We certainly can agree that there are a lot of uninsured people out there, and the solution is to be found in the private sector." Of course, I am not sure what this would mean. Giuliani is the GOP frontrunner, and he wants to do something with tax credits for the poor. That is not a private solution. In fact, that is is similar to democratic proposals, and as such, we are going to have to call it weak "socialized medicine". Though, his proposal is absolutely unclear, since 'Health Care' is not listed on his website anywhere.
But let's not let it end there. Conservatives don't like Giuliani; moderates do. So let's take a look at Mitt 'double Guantanamo' Romney. Romney's site has Health Care as an issue list, but fails to mention anything besides that health coverage should be provided through market-reform rather than government reform.
Its hard to see exactly what this would be, since he says nothing at all about it. However, I could hardly see it being something other than tax credits.
The problem is, even with tax credits younger adults can choose not to have health insurance, and then just claim bankruptcy if something goes wrong.
Ok though, let's not stop this benefit of the doubt stuff. Let's say these conservative reforms cause half of those deaths to go away.
We are down to 6,000 deaths in an average year caused by lack of insurance. And remember, this is assuming all possible ways the number could be lowered from its original number, 18,000.
Remember that number: 6,000 per year.

Terrorism is a worldwide problem. But in the United States, how many people die from terrorism in a given year? In 2001, 3,000 people died. Since then...none...in the United States at least. But maybe my memory is mistaken. Let's say 50 more die every year. And let's count citizens of the U.S. in foreign countries. About 1,000 contractors have died in Iraq since the war started. Let's just pretend they were all American. And let's say another 50 citizens die from random terrorist attacks across the globe each year. You know, those minor attacks...at hotels and what-not. I admit, I really have no idea about that number, but it seems about right. Hell, call me out on it if I'm wrong.
And, though its quite debatable, and I don't think this is a fair move because these deaths could have seemingly been prevented (not to mention, terrorism is a little rough here because 7 in 10 Iraqis approve of attacks on soldiers), let's include American soldiers in Iraq. As of my last count, about 3838 American soldiers have been killed in the War in Iraq. Let's round that up to 3900. Another 450 in Afghanistan makes 4350.
Ok, I think I've been generous enough. Let's add it all up.
4350 American soldiers
600 random traveling citizens
3000 Sept. 11.
1000 contractors in Iraq
equals
8950
divide that by 6 (years this total makes up)
1491 and 2/3. (average number of American deaths, per year, from terrorism, including American soldiers and contractors in Iraq.)

So, let's look at our raw data:
Being completely generous to our conservative friends:
6000 Americans die per year from lack of health insurance.
1491 and 2/3 die per year from terrorism.

Now am I saying defund homeland security? Of course not. Terrorism is a big deal. What I am saying is this: All Republican candidates (except Ron Paul, who has his own issues) are using fear to try and turn people's attention away from real issues. Terrorism is very frightening. Republicans want people to be so afraid of terrorism that they will vote for whoever will keep them safe from it. But if we look at the raw facts here, rationally, we should care more about a quality health care plan than doubling the size of the military. And on health care, I think it is pretty clear the Democrats win. (After all, if they didn't have the better positions, why would the Republicans downplay the issue so much?)