“If we do universal healthcare, we’ll have to wait MONTHS to get an appointment!”
Have you heard that one?
I have a few answers.
First, we wait months NOW. By taking away the power of the mega corporations who now control access, we will actually shorten wait times and travel distance.
When a corporation makes a decision about opening a clinic or hospital, or whether to keep on open, they make the decision based on the bottom line. What decision will put the most money into the pockets of the share-holders.
The wait times and quality of care don’t enter into their discussion unless it affects the bottom line. If massive layoffs of nurses, closing rural clinics, and cutting staff makes sense to the bottom line, that is what they will do.
If they decide to put one RN on the whole floor and staff the rest with CNAs, that is what they will do.
Imagine taking that power away from the corporation, and putting it in the hands of elected boards and experts who make decisions based upon quality care?
Second, The assumption is that when healthcare doesn’t cost the people, but is universal – then the masses will want healthcare and that will bog down the system.
You can see the minds of people working. A white man has to wait for care, and he sees the brown people and the black people in the waiting room. His mind will go to blame, but he puts the blame in the wrong place.
Rather than blame the system of healthcare that we have in this country, he resorts to his racism. “If it weren’t for THESE people clogging up the system, I’d be in and out.”
Yes, I’ve actually heard that. The assumption is that POC of indigenous people, or Mexican people don’t deserve quality healthcare. Their children aren’t as important as mine. They’re all freeloaders.
Or perhaps the poor mother, whose kid is sick and she has to go to the ER or clinic because she can’t afford anywhere else. Will we just call her a freeloader, or a “welfare queen”?
Inherent in all these ideas is that there are some people more deserving of healthcare than other people.
Whether it is white people, male people, employed people, healthy people, people with money – however you want to divide the country up. One group deserves healthcare. The other does not.
I reject the idea that some people do not deserve healthcare. This is why I support universal, free healthcare. Whether a child lives or dies should not be based upon whether that child is in the “in” group or the “out group”.
The fact that a person is human and worthy of inherent dignity is enough for them to deserve access to healthcare.
“All humans are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
This ideal has not been realized, either in 1776, or today. But throughout our history there have been “progressives” who believe in making “progress” towards that goal.
They have almost always been mistakenly called socialists. Lies travel faster than truth.
But I am honored to count myself as among them.
Sam Powell for Senate 