President Obama's Health Care Proposal

Now that the House of Representatives and the Senate have spent a full year doing their very best to appear like a bunch of corrupt, greedy, fools the President has suggested a reconciliation bill which is some ways is just a combination of the existing two bills. The Obama bill has many of the problems of the other two, including that many millions of people will still remain without access to health care even if President Obama's health care bill passes. I recommend that this entire approach to repairing the American health care mess be allowed to die.

Health Care is a basic human right. As a wealthy, well educated, modern country which cares deeply about human dignity and human rights, we have the moral obligation to make certain that everyone in our country gets proper health care treatment. People in America should not be dying when they have a bad accident or come down with a serious illness if 21st century medical procedures could have prevented their death. Allowing this brutality to continue puts Americans in almost the same boat as the Nazis.

Health Care is far too important to let the free marketplace and the profit motive determine who receives health care treatment and who does not. The Army doesn't have a mandate to make a profit, simply because protecting America from foreign invaders is too important to allow markets or profits to control things. The same goes with the fire department. They are both expected to avoid waste and be as efficient as possible, but the profit motive has absolutely nothing to do with their mission. Health Care in America needs to be fully non-profit too. When the military or the fire department serves the citizens of this country, they serve all our citizens and even the people who are just visiting our fine country. They do not just help out wealthy individuals or those people who have jobs. The fire department, the military, and the police all provide universal coverage because of the importance of what they do. When the airplanes struck the World Trade Center on 911, the New York City fire department did not only serve American citizens or legal resident aliens. The men with the NYFD were the representatives of the people, and they served all human beings equally.

Hospitals and clinics need to be operated by-the-people and for-the-people. In other words they need to be owned and run by us taxpayers (the government). Doctors, nurses, and associated staff need to be paid a salary without any sort of bonus or financial incentive program. Not some pay-by-the-procedure program dictated primarily by greed or the profit motive. The drug companies are genuinely multinational, and they should remain largely private. But the drug companies must be heavily controlled and regulated. No advertising should be allowed to the general public. Sales prices must be regulated and controlled just like public utilities are regulated and the rates are controlled by the government.

These elected officials in congress have just been trying to slightly tweak the existing system. The problem is that the existing system in America has now broken down. It is dysfunctional. Broke Down. Trying to tweak it is absurd. Nothing less that a complete overhaul of our approach to health care in America will adequately serve the needs of the people.

Yes, the Obama health care program is just as weak as the others, and it should be rejected.




NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure the reader should be advised that the author of this blog has leukemia. Since he became ill, he lost his job. The insurance companies consider him to be uninsurable, so he is uninsured. He is currently battling a terminal medical problem, but has not received any health care treatment since losing his job.

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