Comment on Senator Reid said near-Universal Health Care is just weeks away from becoming law by Dave Morgan
It is true that the U.S. has a somewhat long and proud reputation of gleaning innovative solutions from states that are frequently improved on or manged by our federal government. But I’m reminded of why Dwight Eisenhower launched what was, for its era, this country’s greatest iconic achievement, the interstate highway system. Up until then individual states built roads and highways that interconnected in ways that would give the average plummer nightmares. We also have a national Center for Disease Control. We also have federal laws regulating interstate commerce, federal laws guaranteeing equal protection, due process and habaeus corpus. We have laws banning what’s bad for us, like drugs, over-intoxication, and other criminal laws. So to make a sweeping statement that government should play no role in health care when it’s been abundantly clear that when left largely unregulated insurance corportations will act like….well…corporations. And since insurance corporations are exempt from anti-trust laws, it gives them not only a license to steal, but to kill. The real death panels are effectively sequestered away at the top of high rises in far away cities. They don’t specifically order someone’s death by saying “no we won’t cover your illness,” but they do write the policies that allow some unseen finger pull the trigger.
Again, we need to analyze challenges through clear vision and open minds. Labels like “big government” or “greedy corporations” don’t provide effective illumination. We need to put people first when it comes to what truly are the life-giving and preserving utilities of life. Clean air, clean water, a good education, freedom to affiliate freely, equal protection under the law, and reasonably priced health care. Health care has far too long been an exclusive arena where medical school gatekeepers have graduated too many guaranteed millionaires which were themselves pre-empted by a highly opportunistic health insurance monopoly. The history of civilization is dominated by those who managed to divert most of any country’s resources into the hands of a few politically and financially dominant few. Determining who gets health care and who doesn’t should not be within a boarding house reach of financial power brokers who really are the “invisible death panels.”