In a recent Blue Oregon post, Ben Westlund cited the Democratic Party's belief in "affordable healthcare" as a "fundamental human right" as the deciding factor in his defection to the Democrats
But on January 4, when Blue Oregon asked readers what they wanted from the new Democratic majority in Congress, only one person responded with a call for universal healthcare.
I agree with that call. No issue, at least domestically, is as pressing as the need for revamping America's healthcare delivery system. The way we go about it now is not only ridiculously expensive --medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy in this country-- it also leaves some 40 - 50 million Americans --primarily the poor-- uninsured. And it saddles employers in both the private and public sectors with huge health insurance costs. Those costs are a drain on the economy.
There's a better way --extending Medicare to all Americans.
Paul Krugman addressed that issue directly in 2005. He did so again recently in response to Arnold Schwarzenegger's hybrid plan to insure all Californians, saying that the California plan adds three new bureaucracies to deal with the three reasons people are uninsured. A single payer approach avoids that complexity:
"Single-payer insurance solves all three problems at a stroke. The Schwarzenegger plan, by contrast, is a series of patches. ... As a result, the plan requires a much more intrusive government role than a single-payer system."
There are two primary obstacles to the adoption of a single payer healthcare system in America. The first is ideological, perhaps best summed up by this article provided by the Blue Oregon commenter who questioned the "right" to healthcare, and called Ben Westlund a "Socialist". The article is from the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute, named after the man who fervently believed that
"...the only viable economic policy for the human race was a policy of unrestricted laissez-faire, of free markets and the unhampered exercise of the right of private property, with government strictly limited to the defense of person and property within its territorial area."
An entrenched and influential group of conservatives, libertarians, and free marketers, affiliated with well-funded think tanks, are thus able to convince Americans that government funding of healthcare is "socialized medicine."
The second is political. As Sarah Ruth van Gelder and Doug Pibel conclude in their piece, "If America's So Great, Where's Our Healthcare", few politicians, including Democrats, have the courage to buck a system that funds a large share of their political campaigns:
"With all the support and all the good reasons to adopt universal health care, why don't we have it yet? Why do politicians refuse to talk about the solution people want? It could be the fact that the health care industry, the top spender on Capitol Hill, spent $183.3 million on lobbying just in the second half of 2005, according to PoliticalMoneyLine. com. And in the 2003-2004 election cycle, they spent $123.7 million on election campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."
People less cynical than I say that "Hillarycare", the Schwarzenegger plan, the Wyden plan, and here in Oregon, the Kulongoski proposal to insure all chlidren, each a half step at best toward an efficient single payer system, or Medicare for all, are pragmatic and politically possible.
I more inclined to see it as politcal cowardice, a condition that won't be remedied until we enact true campaign finance reform.
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