in the dead man's closet
trying on his clothes
not bad
March 2011 Archives
Everyone who is not either ignorant or cynical recognizes that private health insurance must go, and be replaced by a publicly financed single-payer system such as those that exist in virtually every civilized democracy on the planet. Once again I picked up my quill and penned another missive to my Congressman and I urge you to do the same without delay.
Dear Congressman:
I write to urge you to co-sponsor and support HR 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All bill re-introduced by John Conyers.
Everyone knows Obama's healthcare "reform" is coming unravelled, as was to be expected. Based on the thoroughly dysfunctional private insurance system we now have, it was doomed to fail from the start. Many people -- not only the right -- rightly detest the individual mandate because it compels the purchase of a defective product. It is truly a dreadful idea, and yet the Obama legislation can never be even minimally effective without it.
Meanwhile we have the likes of Scott Walker and Chris Christie doing their best to destroy the public sector, as if firefighters and librarians were to blame for the budget crises many states are suffering. One of the recurring themes in these confrontations is the cost of healthcare. How can we take this contentious healthcare issue off the table and save our society billions of dollars, while achieving superior public health outcomes at the same time?
The solution could hardly be more obvious. We have been needing a single-payer, national health insurance plan for decades, but the need has never been more desperate than it is today. Single payer has been proven to work in other countries and it will work here. The time has come to discard Obama's ill-conceived, private-insurance-based debacle and start over. Healthcare is a human right, not a commodity. The struggle will not be easy, but that is no excuse not to do the only morally and economically sound thing: single payer, Medicare for All. One publicly financed national health insurance plan for everybody.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.
