Please, dear reader, consider this a follow up to Pat Edaburn’s excellent piece on Health Care reform.
Wow! What A Deal! Insurance companies agree to cover everyone, and not even charge ludicrous extra amounts for people who have been ill, but only if everyone is required to buy insurance. That’s right, the same highly profitable insurance companies that have caused the price of health care to spiral out of control in a system where nearly 1 out of every 5 workers has no insurance says they can control costs by making everyone buy their product.
The American public doesn’t want mandatory coverage. They don’t want to be told they have to buy something, particularly something that costs hundreds of dollars each and every month. The majority of Americans in poll after poll want “Medicare For All”, or as they euphemistically call it in Washington, “single payer.” And if the majority wants it, that makes it the moderate position; how dare politicians treat it as a “radical liberal” position espoused only by people like Howard Dean. Kindly pay no attention to the fact that Dr. Dean knows more about how health insurance really works than probably anybody else in America.
The people who want us to fear Medicare For All tell us that the government will control what medical care we are allowed to receive. I’ve already written about how this is no different from insurance companies controlling what medical care we are allowed to receive. Further, I challenge these critics to ask a few Medicare recipients about their experiences. Few have anything bad to say.
The people who want us to fear Medicare For All then tell us how terrible it will be for the economy, how taxes will have to rise and how our corporations will have higher expenses. I’ve written that there are at least 10 ways it will improve our economy, making our auto manufacturers more competitive and giving entrepreneurs a more even playing field.
In the end, it appears that Senate Democrats can use a procedural rule to avoid filibuster on the issue and force that “straight up or down vote” that Republicans made so popular in the previous administration when it comes to health insurance reform. Let’s hope that Harry Reid and company are willing to do the politically scary thing of giving the majority of Americans exactly what they want.