The United States may be the last of the developed nations to institute a government-run universal healthcare system, but it will happen. The Affordable Care Act was a beginning, but without Republican input, it is flawed. Right wing politicians made dozens of attempts to repeal the law instead of working with Democrats to improve the system.
The next step is to adopt a system labeled “single payer.” Instead of hundreds of insurance company offering variable rates on healthcare insurance, it will be standardized and affordable.
In the American Journal of Public Health, more than 2,000 physicians are calling for a universal healthcare system managed by the government. They believe that it should be similar to Canada’s. It would be paid for by already existing government programs, and result in lower expenditures.
“Our patients can’t afford care and don’t have access to the care they need, while the system is ever more wasteful, throwing away money on bureaucratic expenses and absurd prices from the drug companies,” said David Himmelstein, a professor in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College and lecturer on medicine at Harvard Medical School.
It’s simply common sense. There is no excuse for the richest nation in the world not to consider healthcare a right and not a privilege for wealthier Americans and politicians.
“There has been a conviction that we can approach this incrementally and get there in small steps and one of the advantages of having passed the ACA is that modest steps can’t do the job, and in a way make it easier to make arguments that we need more fundamental changes,” said Himmelstein.
Ask yourself why the right wing is in opposition to you and your family having healthcare. They have it and we pay for it. Why do Republicans constantly spread lies about universal healthcare. I have a cousin who married a Canadian gentleman nearly 50 years ago. She is extremely pleased with the social programs in her ‘new’ country. Now that she is a ‘senior citizen,’ she says that she would never move back to the United States for reasons of healthcare alone.
We know politicians lie; but the lies about “Obamacare” are huge. None of the predictions of extremist conservatives materialized. The saddest part of this situation, is that the right wing has no idea as to how they would replace it. They would leave millions of Americans without access to healthcare once again.
The presumptive nominee for the presidency from the GOP promises to repeal “Obamacare.” Just as with every other issue, he has no idea about what that will mean to the general public. He has not offered a single plan to replace this “right” of the American people. Donald Trump: Unqualified.
The American public must wake-up, stop believing lies, and elect men and women who care about the people and not business. Money cannot be our nation’s god.
If I was not old enough to be on Medicare, I could not afford healthcare if “Obamacare” did not exist. It can be improved, and 2,000 doctors agree with me.
Op-Ed
By James Turnage
Photo Courtesy of Deborah Austin
The Truth With No Restrictions 