Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Change we won't get from the Obama Administration:

...anything worthy of the name 'universal health care'.

The discourse of 'lowering health care costs' is preposterous. The question is whether we should have commodified insurance policies sold primarily for profit, or universally-guaranteed insurance based on citizenship. As many have argued, while the existence of nearly 50 million uninsured Americans is a travesty, this shouldn't obscure the fact that the moral bankruptcy of our profit-driven health insurance industry extends to those who currently have insurance as well. As long as health insurance is a multi-billion dollar industry where denied claims mean higher profits, we can expect that 'pre-existing conditions', 'experimental treatments' and other loop-holes will be continually exploited by insurance firms with the result that no one can rest assured that they really will have access to health care in their moment of need.

This is what universal health care looks like:
"The National Health Service Act of 1946 provides a complete medical service free of charge at the time it is required for every citizen. It will provide you with all your medical, dental and nursing care. Everyone rich or poor, man, woman or child can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items; there are no insurance qualifications. But it is not a charity. You are all paying for it, mainly as taxpayers, and it will relieve your money worries in time of illness."

excerpted from the Introduction to the NHS Act 1946"

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