Universal Health Care requires a NEW DEAL

In the 1930’s, the U.S. economic system faced a crisis. Prior to the 1929 Stock Market crash, unregulated corporations had been maximizing profits at the growing expense of the general public (primarily due to low wages and lack of labor laws). The rich got richer and the poor people stood in bread lines. Those unbalanced, unfair conditions would never have been changed by those who had comfortable incomes. The change required government participation and a nationwide NEW DEAL (1933-34).

Those harsh conditions were not unlike the conditions which exists today in the American health care crisis. Health care industries, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and medical doctors are maximizing profits and enjoying comfortable incomes at the expense of the general public. Some of these conditions are due to industry monopolies and lack of government regulation.

The present crisis in health care will not be altered in any way by those special interest industries or corporations who are presently experiencing record profits. These special interest groups are daily financing the K Street (Washington D. C.) lobbyists to prevent any changes in the present under-regulated, privatized medical system. The rich are getting richer and the poor people are dying.

This present health care system crisis requires a nationwide NEW DEAL. Only when the U.S. government has more interest in the well being of the American people than in the special interest groups, can the present unbalanced, unfair conditions be changed. Only when the American people tell their elected representatives to stop supporting legislation beneficial to the special interest (corporations) and start supporting legislation beneficial to the general public. Otherwise medical costs (and profits) will only continue to escalate.

Politicians who are running for office temporarily voice support for health care reform, until they are elected and are safely in office. Then they conveniently become preoccupied with other matters and forget about significant health care changes. They quietly continue to receive lucrative contributions from special interests and find excuses to justify supporting legislations beneficial to those same special interests.

Low voter turnout in general elections and widespread apathy allows this unjust system to continue year after year.

Establishing a universal health care system is not easy in any nation. It takes decades to eliminate inequalities in any social system especially when they concern equal rights. In the past century, different groups (political, religious, racial, economical etc.) have been struggling for equality. In the U.S., equality is a never ending evolving process.

That struggle continues today in the American health care system. Escalating medical costs and lack of coverage is effecting the majority of Americans. Not just the millions (including children) who have no coverage at all, but the millions of working people who can’t afford the high monthly insurance cost. Most of these are healthy people. (Census data show that 46.6 million Americans were uninsured in 2005 - cbpp.org).

Anyone who has an injury or illness faces a catastrophe. Any major medical costs will usually bankrupt an average family, probably result in losing their home and canceling any plans for their children to attend college.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Other countries, including Canada and France, have better, cheaper, more universal health care for their citizens. These systems have taken decades to establish, but they are systems that the U.S. can copy or learn lessons from, if the U.S. would begin to take some legislative action and make some basic changes. One basic change would be to limit medical malpractice suits. However these benefits must be shared by the public and not just benefit the insurance companies and medical profession. Lower medical malpractice suit settlements should lower insurance costs for everyone. Importing prescription drugs can also lower the costs.

There is no justifiable reason that other countries should have better medical systems than the U.S. The U.S. has the resources, facilities and personnel but the priorities are lacking. Also lacking is national leadership.

There cannot be universal health care as long as the system is completely privatized. The goal of privatized health care will always be to maximize profits not to maximize coverage. Maximized profit is incompatible with maximized coverage. Corporations can’t make profits off of poor people.

Universal health care requires some government participation or it can’t include everyone. Those people who live below the poverty line (approximately 37 million Americans - peopledaily.com) should have a Constitutional right to receive medical attention whenever they need it. The right to basic health care should be included in the Bill of Rights along with the right to vote and every other right that every American citizen enjoys. In fact, the right to be healthy should be the most important right of all.

Thousands of convicts in U.S. custody in jails and prisons throughout the nation have access to basic medical care. Gang members, mass murderers, drug dealers etc. are all guilty of some crime against society and are given free medical care. (This does not mean to suggest that prisoners should not be treated well by the state. Everyone should have good medical care).

And yet millions of innocent American children are denied any medical coverage at all. Children who have committed no crime other than being born to disadvantaged parents. It is estimated that approximately 9 million children have no coverage, 11.5 million have partial coverage, and 3 million have no access to doctors. That’s a total of about 23 million American children. (cbs.com).

The U.S. government is presently spending hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer’s money on the Defense Department and the war in Iraq. The U.S. military budget is about seven times that of China or Russia (global issues.org). What about the defense of U.S. citizens from illness or injury? More Americans die every year (approximately 18,000 - theAtlantic.com) from a lack of medical insurance than died on 9/11. Only a small percent of the present war budget would save more American lives than the trillion dollars that is being spent on Iraq. Only a small percent of the Iraq war budget would provide medical coverage for every man, woman and child in the U.S.

It’s time for the U.S. to change it’s priorities from a War budget to a Health budget. The U.S. seriously needs some new leaders who have a sense of compassion and vision.