[Peace-discuss] Oppose Obamacare

[C. G. Estabrook]

	It's Simple: Medicare for All
	By George S. McGovern
	Sunday, September 13, 2009

For many years, a handful of American political leaders -- including the late 
senator Ted Kennedy and now President Obama -- have been trying to gain passage 
of comprehensive health care for all Americans. As far back as President Harry 
S. Truman, they have urged Congress to act on this national need. In a 
presentation before a joint session of Congress last week, Obama offered his 
view of the best way forward.

But what seems missing in the current battle is a single proposal that everyone 
can understand and that does not lend itself to demagoguery. If we want 
comprehensive health care for all our citizens, we can achieve it with a single 
sentence: Congress hereby extends Medicare to all Americans.

Those of us over 65 have been enjoying this program for years. I go to the 
doctor or hospital of my choice, and my taxes pay all the bills. It's wonderful. 
But I would have appreciated it even more if my wife and children and I had had 
such health-care coverage when we were younger. I want every American, from 
birth to death, to get the kind of health care I now receive. Removing the 
payments now going to the insurance corporations would considerably offset the 
tax increase necessary to cover all Americans.

I don't feel as though the government is meddling in my life when it pays my 
doctor and hospital fees. There are some things the government does that I don't 
like -- most notably getting us into needless wars that cost many times what 
health care for all Americans would cost. Investing in the health of our 
citizens will enhance the well-being and security of the nation.

We know that Medicare has worked well for half a century for those of us over 
65. Why does it become "socialized medicine" when we extend it to younger Americans?

Taking such a shortsighted view would leave nearly 50 million Americans without 
health insurance and without the means to buy it. It would leave other Americans 
struggling to pay the rising cost of insurance premiums. These private insurance 
plans are frequently terminated if the holder contracts a serious long-term 
ailment. And some people lose their insurance if they lose their jobs or if the 
plant where they work moves to another location -- perhaps overseas.

We recently bailed out the finance houses and banks to the tune of $700 billion. 
A country that can afford such an outlay while paying for wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan can afford to do what every other advanced democracy has done: 
underwrite quality health care for all its citizens.

If Medicare needs a few modifications in order to serve all Americans, we can 
make such adjustments now or later. But let's make sure Congress has an up or 
down vote on Medicare for all before it adjourns this year. Let's not waste time 
trying to reinvent the wheel. We all know what Medicare is. Do we want health 
care for all, or only for those over 65?

If the roll is called and it goes against those of us who favor national health 
care, so be it. If it is approved, the entire nation can applaud.

Many people familiar with politics in America will tell you that this idea can't 
pass Congress, in part because the insurance lobby is too powerful for lawmakers 
to resist.

As matters now stand, the insurance companies claim $450 billion a year of our 
health-care dollars. They will fight hard to hold on to this bonanza. This is a 
major reason Americans pay more for health care per capita than any other people 
in the world. The insurance executives didn't cry "socialism" when their buddies 
in banking and finance were bailed out. But to them it is socialism if the 
government underwrites the cost of health care.

Consider the campaign funds given to the chairman and ranking minority member of 
the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over health-care 
legislation. Chairman Max Baucus of Montana, a Democrat, and his political 
action committee have received nearly $4 million from the health-care lobby 
since 2003. The ranking Republican, Charles Grassley of Iowa, has received more 
than $2 million. It's a mistake for one politician to judge the personal motives 
of another. But Sens. Baucus and Grassley are firm opponents of the single-payer 
system, as are other highly placed members of Congress who have been generously 
rewarded by the insurance lobby.

In the past, doctors and their national association opposed Medicare and efforts 
to extend such benefits. But in recent years, many doctors have changed their views.

In December 2007, the 124,000-member American College of Physicians endorsed for 
the first time a single-payer national health insurance program. And a March 
2008 study by Indiana University -- the largest survey ever of doctors' opinions 
on financing health-care reform -- concluded that 59 percent of doctors support 
national health insurance.

To have the doctors with us favoring government health insurance is good news. 
As Obama said: "We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it."

George S. McGovern, a former senator from South Dakota, was the Democratic 
nominee for president in 1972.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091102406.html

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