By Dennis Kucinich
Medicare for All is an idea whose time has come. Let’s make all Americans healthy and wealthy. Let’s lift up all of our families, save our homes, and help our businesses and industries. Let’s join every other industrialized nation in the world and offer health care to all of our people.
…
From The Nation
The terms of the health-care debate must be shifted.
Healthcare protest
The health-care debate in America is essentially an argument over what kind of private insurance market people should have access to: President Obama’s, where the insurance companies made out like bandits, or President Trump’s, where insurance companies will make out like bandits.
Let’s change the debate by making it between for-profit insurance vs. not-for-profit health care. That’s what I and Congressmen John Conyers and Jim McDermott sought to do in 2003 when we wrote and introduced Medicare for All, HR 676, in the House of Representatives.
Six years ago, I was the last Democrat hold-out on “Obamacare.” My constituents desperately needed coverage for pre-existing conditions and for their adult children. I reluctantly voted for it to prove that some reform was possible, not because it was an acceptable end-point.
It still left out millions and left consumers at the mercy of insurance companies. And everyone knows insurance companies make money by providing as little health care as possible.Here is what the for-profit insurance system brings:
Rising premiums and co-pays.
Diminishing coverage.
More government subsidy of private insurers.
Rising costs for prescription drugs.
More people going bankrupt because of hospital bills.
More people losing their homes because of hospital bills.
More seniors forced into poverty, losing everything they worked for their entire lives.
This is not about Democrats vs. Republicans, liberals vs. conservatives, left vs. right. This is about life vs. death.
This is about whether we, as Americans, can recognize a common interest in using the vast resources of our nation to insure the health of our people.
Health spending approaches nearly 18 percent of the $20 trillion GDP. Nearly a trillion dollars of that amount goes for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing, and the cost of paperwork.
If we took all the money that people and the government are presently paying into the for-profit system and applied it to care for people in a not-for-profit system, we could provide for basic health care for all Americans, including prescription drugs, vision care, dental care, mental-health care, and long-term care.
That is what HR 676, Medicare for All, was all about.
Medicare for All is an idea whose time has come. Let’s make all Americans healthy and wealthy. Let’s lift up all of our families, save our homes, and help our businesses and industries. Let’s join every other industrialized nation in the world and offer health care to all of our people.
The terms of the debate in Washington must be shifted. We must not be stuck between competing for-profit health-insurance schemes. Let’s renew the debate: Medicare for All or profit for a few.
Copyright – 2017 thenation.com — distributed by Agence Global
Submitters Bio:
Visit his website at KucinichAction
Dennis Kucinich is former US Congressman and two-time presidential candidate from Ohio who served 16 years in the U.S. House of Representatives.
MAIN IMAGE:
EDITOR’S NOTE: No material by this author or any other author published on this site should be read as a defense of Donald trump and his policies. For us Trump, the GOP and the Democrats are all part of the same malignant threat to Democracy, truth and honesty in fiscal affairs afflicting the US and the rest of the world. The purpose here is to show the partisan hypocrisy of the Democratic party and its numerous shills in Congress, media, “power ministries” (CIA, FBI, etc.) and elsewhere, all pushing for war to please their masters in the Military Industrial complex and Wall Street’s agenda of global hegemony at any cost. We should further note that these parties, if they were in office, would be implementing policies almost identical to Trump’s, so, as usual, the differences, such as they are in US politics, amount to a hill of beans and mere questions of style and topical priority.
Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com
We apologize for this inconvenience.
What will it take to bring America to live according to its own propaganda?
=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
free • safe • invaluable
Please see our red registration box at the bottom of this page
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Greanville Post, a publication of The Voice of Nature Network, Inc., (VNN), a not-for-profit 501 (c) (3) corporation, will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Greanville Post grants permission to cross-post original The Greanville Post articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author’s copyright must be displayed. For publication of The Greanville Post articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact:
THE GREANVILLE POST contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues, and the furtherance of peace and social justice, the defence of our planetary ecosystems, and the prevention and eventual elimination of human abuse, exploitation,.and cruelty toward any and all non-human species The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
For media inquiries contact us at greanville@gmail.com