Nero is said to have fiddled while Rome burned. Today Republicans stall while Americans die.

On July 13 Republican consultant Alex Castellanos advised the GOP on health care reform, "If we slow this sausage-making process down, we can defeat it."

On July 20 the Republican National Committee distributed a memo that called for the defeat of President Obama's health care proposals by delaying their consideration. The RNC memo called for the use of "a whole host of tools, from organizing town halls, to writing letters to the editor, to booking surrogates on radio and television, to engaging in street theater protests outside Democratic events." And with ultimate hypocrisy, the memo encouraged readers to portray the president as the one acting out of political motivations.

Then on July 21 Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina said, "If we are to stop Obama on this, it would be his Waterloo. It will break him" - proving once and for all the hypocrisy of the entire Republican party in this matter.

Thus health care reform was delayed for 84 days as I write this. This delay is bad enough, knowing that our health care system is hurting families and small business, but it is in reality far worse. In September the American Journal of Public Health published a study showing that 44,800 Americans die each year due to a lack of health insurance. That is 123 per day. Meaning that 10,332 have died since the Republicans decided to stall the process.

This is an outrage, it is unconscionable, it is a national disgrace. All I can ask of the GOP, after all these deaths, is: "How can you sleep at night?"

WESLEY STINSON

Concord