Health Care ruling and Jimmy Carter article

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/opinion/americas-shameful-human-rights-record.html?_r=1

The first thing I wanted to do is link to that article- it's President Carter's view on Obama's foreign policy/human rights record, and I think it's exactly what needs to be said.  Wish McGovern had taken a similar tack in his last book, the more elder statesmen that come out and declare that the Democratic Party's rightward shift is shameful and untenable the better.

Well, happy fourth to all.  I think it time to comment on the upholding of the Health Care Reform bill.  Many of you know my sentiments, but I will restate the crux of the matter here: Health Care is too important to be determined by the market.  It is a right, not a commodity, and no so-called reform bill that allows private profit margins to influence health care decisions will have my support.  The Affordable Care act does not meet my standards of even s step in the right direction, as it keeps public health insurance off the table for the vast majority of Americans.  I know the mandate is lenient and difficult to enforce, but the fact remains that the government has once again agreed that the profit of the insurance companies is a legitimate consideration, yea even at the expense of the people's health.  Obliging the government to foot part of the bill for poor people's treatment with the new subsidies is correct in principle, but as the industry remains profit-driven the offered subsidies will either soon prove inadequate, or bankrupt the government as it strives to keep pace with the rocketing cost of insurance, driven by speculation, inefficiency, and above all the drive for profit.

That said, there are a number of useful regulations in the bill, and had the thing been struck down in its entirety, it would have been a loss.  I am personally benefiting from the policy enabling parents' health insurance to cover children until age 26, and once the prohibition of refusing coverage to those with preexisting conditions kicks in, it will be somewhat helpful too.  Furthermore, insurance companies are now barred from charging women more than men for the same health care, so that's a positive too.

Of course, none of this changes the underlying problem: capitalism's disregard for humanity.  My fears now are twofold- that the government will be weakened by the loss of the sums it must now hemorrhage to feed the insurance companies whose profit motive as recently as 2009 was responsible for the deaths of 45000 people a year, according to Reuters, and that having applied the palliative of "Hope and Change", the nation will fail to undertake serious action to address the root of the problem for a long time to come.

To solve this problem, the first step would be to expand Medicare to all those who want it.  This could be paid for by charging reparations from the insurance companies for the damage they have wrought upon us, but I would much prefer a more sustainable solution: namely Socialized medicine.  Health care providers should be employed by the government, funded by taxation, and able to help patients without answering to anyone's bottom line but that of their conscience.  You can't put a price on the priceless, like good health, but we can certainly learn the cost of the status quo as the quality of care keeps deteriorating to better profit the private companies who now as before have the full support of the government.

Nationalize the lot of them.
In Solidatität
Genosse Graham