How Universal Health Care Changes Everything

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



How Universal Health Care Changes Everything
By Sara Robinson

October 28th, 2008 - 4:44am ET



With one fell stroke, giving Americans universal access to health care will undermine some of the deepest and most persistent myths of the conservative worldview.


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We've worked hard to build a progressive political juggernaut that will, God willing and the creek don't rise, put us in control of both Congress and the Executive Branch starting just a week from now.

But it's one thing to get power, and another thing to keep it.

Someone (OK, it was Rick Perlstein) recently asked a group of friends to name the single most important policy step progressives could take to solidify a long-term grip on the government — the kind of extended run we had from 1932 through to the Age of Reagan.

There were a lot of good answers. Ending privatization was, I thought, the best answer of all. Reinvesting in education is important if we want to ensure that the next generation will support and sustain our work and values. (I like to joke that the reason they call it "liberal education" is that the more of it you have, the more liberal you're likely to be. It's not quite accurate, but it's true enough.) Ensuring that people's interactions with government are useful and positive was another: In a lot of states, one afternoon at the DMV is enough to make the most ardent good-government partisan turn into Grover Norquist. (Maybe we don't want to drag the whole government into the bathtub to drown it, but that SOB at Window 11 would be a fine place to start.)

But in the end, I settled on "provide universal health care—preferably single-payer" as my final answer. I chose this not just because health care is an important public good (though it is), but because I'm convinced that this single step will do more to rapidly and permanently undermine the conservative worldview than anything else we could possibly do.

How Universal Care Changes Everything: The Canadian Example

I've seen this happen, at very close range. Over the course of nearly five years living in Canada, I've been continually impressed by the durable, far-reaching role universal health care plays in expressing and reinforcing the entire country's political philosophy. It's probably not overstating things to say that the health care system is at the very core of the Canadian sense of national identity, right up there with the Mounties and the Hudson's Bay Company and well above the Queen. Every time my neighbors go to the doctor, the experience reaffirms a set of cultural assumptions that, over time, have made and kept the country unwaveringly progressive. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008104428/how-universal-health-care-changes-everything

[fencesitter]

1. she's written some great stuff on healthcare.

there was a two or three part series on debunking the Canadian System as slow and inefficient.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. K&R

:patriot: :kick:

[SoCalDem]

3. Adopting it would be so freeing.

Employers would be rid of all that paperwork and could actually pay raises to workers, instead of giving then a $20 raise and a $50 increase in insurance costs.

Workers' wages would INCREASE... yes you heard it ..INCREASE.. because once the medical apron strings were cut, people would be free to start their own businesses, or to switch jobs freely. Employers would have to pay decent wages to keep their good employees.

Once the fear of losing health care was gone, people would sleep nights, and not be in a constant state of semi-panic every time they heard an office rumor of layoffs.

Our products that are still made here would not need to have extra cost built in to cover the health care costs..

It's dangerous for an employer to hold life-death (for many) sway over employees.

[eridani]

4. Obama is not in favor of it. If we get it, it will be because of a push from below n/t

[Laelth]

5. The last time we controlled both Congress and the White House was '93 and '94.

Clinton got a lot of great things done in those two years. The one thing he could not get done was to get us universal "insurance," much less universal health care. I believe, and many agree with me, that the Clintons' push for universal insurance was the single, greatest factor in bringing about Newt Gingrich and the Republic take-over of the House in '94.

I want universal, single-payer health care for all Americans guaranteed as a fundamental right of all citizens. Currently, I am one of those without any medical insurance, and a single illness could wipe out everything I own. However, I make the point above in hopes that we tread lightly on this subject. I certainly want Obama to move toward a single-payer system, but I don't think it can be done all at once.

However, once we get there, there's no looking back. The NHS in the UK is sacred. Once a country achieves a single-payer system, they never get rid of it. Even the Tories in the U.K., at the height of their power, didn't dare under-fund or attempt to dismantle the NHS. It would have been political suicide to do so.

I expect that we can get there in six years. If we make gains in the Senate and the House in 2010, we may be able do it in four. Here's hoping.

:toast:

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth