It's Time To Make Healthcare A Right For All U.S. Citizens

The following is part of an excellent article by Thom Hartmann at The Hartmann Report:

In the richest nation in the history of planet Earth, millions of Americans are dying from treatable illnesses, rationing insulin, and running GoFundMe campaigns for chemotherapy. This isn’t just a policy failure, it’s a moral collapse. . . .

Most Americans have no idea that the United States is quite literally the onlycountry in the developed world that doesn’t define healthcare as an absolute right for all of its citizens. That’s it. We’re the only one left.

As a result, we spend more on “healthcare” than any other country in the world: about 17% of GDP.

Switzerland, Germany, France, Sweden and Japan all average around 11%, and Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Netherlands, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia all come in between 9.3% and 10.5%.

Health insurance premiums right now make up about 22% of all taxable payroll, whereas Medicare For All would run an estimated 10%.

We are literally the only developed country in the world with an entire multi-billion-dollar for-profit industry devoted to parasitically extracting money from us to then turn over to healthcare providers on our behalf after they’ve skimmed hundreds of billions off the top. The for-profit health insurance industry has attached itself to us like a giant, bloodsucking tick. . . .

Medicare For All, like Canada has, would save American families thousands every year immediately and do away with the 500,000+ annual bankruptcies in this country that happen because somebody in the family got sick. But it would kill the billions every week in profits of the half-dozen corporate giants that dominate the health insurance industry and heavily subsidize the GOP.

Bernie’s efforts — which were entirely sensible and would have saved the nation and our working class people trillions of dollars in the years since 2016 — were defeated by a coalition of the insurance industry, Republicans, and a handful of bought-off Democrats who went along with the GOP’s charge that it was “socialism” and therefore a bad thing.

You know, like our “socialist” fire departments, or public highways, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, FEMA, CDC, etc., etc. . . .

It’s time for a bold change in the Party’s position on healthcare.

Democrats are looking for a simple message that will resonate with voters and prove that they’re on the side of working class people while Republicans are all-in for the plutocrats. They should look to the progressives’ healthcare positions. 

Voters are sick and tired of both Republicans and “centrist” Democrats with their hands in lobbyists’ pockets, too timid to take on the issues that are ripping American families apart. That are bankrupting a half-million families every year, something that doesn’t happen in any other developed country in the world. 

Fully two-thirds of Democrats — the party’s base and more — want their party’s leadership to be more aggressive. To lead instead of following. To tell the truth and not cower when Republicans scream, “Socialism!” To promote bold solutions to real problems.

As we head now toward the midterm elections next year, affordable healthcare via a public option to buy into real Medicare at any age should be at the top of that list.

“Healthcare for All” isn’t a slogan: it’s a test of who we are as a nation. It asks whether we believe in shared humanity over corporate profit, and whether our politics can still serve the living instead of the lobbyists.

The promise that could heal America isn’t abstract; it’s written in the stories of every family that is one accident, one diagnosis, or one pink slip away from ruin. 

If Democrats have the courage to run on this truth — that survival shouldn’t depend on wealth and status — they won’t just win elections. They’ll change for the better what it means to be an American.