I’m wondering when (if)
the US will join the rest of the industrialized world in offering Universal Health Care for the American people. It seems like such a basic need, even a human right, depending on who you ask. Not having the stress and anxiety over having to constantly navigate a hurly-burly bureaucratic maze just to access healthcare would improve the lives of so many people in the US.
Why isn’t this a slam-dunk.
Because the wrong people would benefit from a single payer, universal healthcare system. And we certainly cannot have that.
“Already federal, state and local governments pay for about half of this gigantic sum through Medicare, Medicaid, the Pentagon, VA, and insuring their public employees. But the system is complexly corrupted by the greed, oft-documented waste, and over-selling of the immensely-profitable, bureaucratic insurance and drug industry.
To those self-described conservatives out there, consider that major conservative philosophers such as Friedrich Hayek, a leader of the Austrian School of Economics, so revered by Ron Paul, supported “a comprehensive system of social insurance” to protect the people from “the common hazards of life,” including illness. He wanted a publically funded system for everyone, not just Medicare and Medicaid patients, with a private delivery of medical/health services. That is what HR 676 would establish (ask your member of Congress for a copy or find the full text here. (Conservatives may wish to read for greater elaboration of this conservative basis, my book, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.)
Maybe some of this conservative tradition is beginning to seep into the minds of the corporatist editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal. Seeing the writing on the wall, so to speak, a recent editorial, before the Ryan/Trump crash, concluded with these remarkable words:
“The Healthcare Market is at a crossroads. Either it heads in a more market-based direction step by step or it moves toward single payer step by step. If Republicans blow this chance and default to Democrats, they might as well endorse single-payer because that is where the politics will end up.”
Hooray!”
Hooray indeed Mr.Nader. Let us hope that the failure to pass Trumpcare is the crack in policy needed to advance the single payer agenda.
bleatmop
The Intransigent One
Mystro
The Arbourist
2 comments
April 6, 2017 at 6:29 am
roughseasinthemed
I read an appalling comment the other day from an American about why s/he didn’t want a national health system. It was the most selfish load of tosh I’ve read for some time. Basically on the lines of those idle/unemployed/poor people should make provision for medical care (er, how?) because us better off people don’t want to fund them. Ugh.
Ironically, a few days before, I’d held a board meeting for our block. Our neighbour, who is the freeholder, was talking about her block where all the residents are freeholders rather than leaseholders, so there are no communal charges. And, she said, it was a nightmare because nothing gets done. No cleaning, no maintenance, nada. Because the residents can’t/won’t get together.
I thought the parallel was fascinating. Me, me, me. Don’t care about anyone else or the local community.
In terms of health care I think a national system, free on point of access (ie as in uk) should be obligatory. Health care, education and a right to work have to all be the most basic of rights (especially for women).
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April 6, 2017 at 9:16 am
The Arbourist
@RSItM
It is in debates like health care that we can see the weakness of the libertarian free market approach.
There are some aspects of society that government do really well, and others that the market does really well in.
Acknowledging this difference would help people make headway, at least in the US, on this issue.
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