Why I support Universal Health Care.

• I think that health care for folks who get sick or injured is one of the wisest and most compassionate and just uses of tax dollars that I can think of.  Sickness or injury could happen to anyone, including you or me. It could wipe us out financially, unlike in nearly all the rest of the civilized world.  This is true even for people who are well to do.  50% of US bankruptcies are caused by medical expenses that are not covered by insurance. Source: http://bit.ly/k2489.  Our country spends billions on welfare programs for the “poor” such as food stamps, AFDC, HUD housing subsidies, exemptions for dependents, etc.  But many people who are poor are poor because of their own fault – they are lazy, would rather let the government take care of them than to work, spend their money foolishly, fail to save and invest prudently; and these choices lead to them becoming poor.  Persons who choose to educate themselves well and work hard are rarely poor.  People who are sick or injured, on the other hand, are nearly always that way through no fault of their own.

Under the present system of health care (which the Republicans love and would not plan to make any significant changes to):

• 47 million Americans are without health insurance.  Orrin Hatch has challenged this number but the Politifact fact checker website has found that his challenge is only half truth. See: http://bit.ly/YMKqQ.
• 20,000 Americans die every year because they can not afford medical care.   See page 7 of http://bit.ly/rpFKt7.
• The per-capita cost of health care inAmericais about twice what it is in countries that cover everyone for free.  We pay much more and get much less thanCanadaandEngland, for example.
• Health care premiums are increasing 3 times faster than wages are, and will continue to increase even more if nothing is done.
• Millions of folks, who have worked all their lives and been prudent enough to save– still have to continue working, not because they need the wages, but because they need the group health care plans, because many such folks can’t afford the premiums on health care without a group plan. Under universal health care, such folks wouldn’t have to work their entire lives to pay health insurance.
• 50% of US bankruptcies are caused by medical expenses that are not covered by insurance. Source: http://bit.ly/k2489.
• It is OUR tax dollars that pay the funds that are paid out to Medicaid to pay for the health care of folks who are too financially imprudent and/or cheap to buy health care insurance. That amounts to a huge percentage of total federal spending. Why should they get a free ride at the expense of those who choose to pay in to health care?
• Millions of folks fail to get medical treatment they need because they can not afford it. This includes both the un-insured and (due to high premiums, high deductibles, maximum coverage’s in most policies and high health care costs in the USA in general) very many folks who are insured.
• Millions of folks who don’t for what ever reason pay into the health care system either:
  o Sponge off the rest of us if they happen to qualify for Medicaid, or
  o Fail to get the treatment they need when they need it, or
  o In some cases, they just die.

The argument that Universal Health Care is socialistic has some validity, but theUSAhas never been a 100% democracy, nor run entirely by the market principles of capitalism. Nor, should it be! We don’t let the market determine if you can buy cocaine or if you can murder someone you don’t like (although the NRA supports the latter idea). Sometimes the government needs to step in to do things that are desirable that the market would not do by itself. Persons who have a heart, by which I mean: compassion for those less fortunate than themselves (folks who find themselves in bad situations that they did not cause for themselves) would agree with most of the civilized world outside the USA that the current system of voluntary health coverage produces unacceptable results (outlined in the bullet list above), and therefore a Universal Health Care system is needed. If this doesn’t convince you, see the movie Sick-o, which shows you just how bad our system is.  There are also videos done by PBS (about as non-partisan as you can get) that show how bad health care reform is needed.

Those who claim that the health care bill passed by Congress is socialistic or amounts to a government takeover are mis-informed.  The health care bill passed by Congress preserves the employer-based health care system, meaning an estimated 200 million (of a total of 300 million) Americans will continue to get their coverage through their employers.  For people buying coverage for themselves, there is a range of private health plans to choose from. Because of Republican/ Conservative pressures and rampant circulation of false statements that it would be a government takeover of the health care system inAmerica, the so-called “public plan” option has been dropped from the health care bill.  The truth is that option would have forced greater competition among insurance plans for the consumer’s business, and per the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office – lowered the cost for health care insurance in most cases.  But the widely circulated mis-information killed it.   The bill passed by the Congress allows people to choose their own doctors and hospitals in all cases.  Thus it is in no way a government takeover of health care.  Conservatives are lying about this and they know it.

Many universal health care advocates hailCanada, a nation that adopted a national single-payer system in 1966, as successful example. With a population of 30.5 million people (roughly the same as California), Canada has an infant mortality rate of 4.6 per 1,000 live births and an average life expectancy of 80.3 years — compared with 6.4 and 78.0, respectively, in the United States.  In short, they get better health care for less money under their system.

Misinformation about the health care law is rampant, due to special interest groups trying to block progress on health care reform by using myths, outright lies and scare tactics. Like the notion that health care reform would ration your care, hurt Medicare, be a form of socialism, be a government takeover or cost too much.  Actually, these claims are all false statements.  Fortunately there are fact checker websites that have worked hard to identify the mis-information pieces and though research debunk what is not true and provide the actual facts of the matter.  For example, a major concern of opponents of health care is the perceived added cost.  However, if we do nothing to fix health care, families with Medicare or employer-based health coverage will likely see their premiums nearly double and the share of their income spent on health care nearly double in the next seven years. Thus we can not afford not to implement health care reform.

The AARP, a nonpartisan organization of 40 million members, has taken a stand to help clear up this mis-information, see http://bit.ly/gDE30.   PolitiFact, a fact-checker project of the St. Petersburg Times, also helps clear up the facts: http://bit.ly/i6Rt4.  The Urban Legends website (www.snopes.com) has also debunked some of the health care bill myths that circulate by e-mails.  Other fact checking websites that have reported on the health care bill include: http://bit.ly/3eiAvY and http://bit.ly/MYdXh.  All such fact checking websites concur that most of the statements being made by persons opposing the health care bill are inaccurate.  All of the fact checker websites cited have an outstanding, if not perfect, record of accuracy.  If they were inaccurate, even occasionally, that fact would be published all over the Internet.   The fact is that there is no reputable website that has discredited any of the major fact checking websites cited above, and they are all so well regarded that they are quoted frequently by newspaper and TV news media (even including the conservative Fox network) all over the country.

The United States is the only developed nation that doesn’t offer its citizens universal health care.  Countries that have Universal Health care include: Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. These are shown in blue, below. Countries planning to adopt it are shown in green, below. Countries that do not have universal health care are shown in gray, below. There are no countries that have adopted it and later decided to discontinue it.  On this issue America is in the same boat with Eastern Europe and most of the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Other than the USA, it’s mostly backward, third world nations that do not have Universal Health Care.