There was a time when a national system of universal health care seemed close enough to touch. No longer. The titans who guard access to what passes for healthcare in America have mounted an expensive and effective counter-attack leaving millions of Americans needing care but unable to afford it. Putting money in campaign war chests is a real game-changer. Even Bernie Sanders, a self-described advocate of the same universal healthcare that all the economically advanced nations of the world have had for decades, has made a major U-turn and now concentrates his waning power on supporting the gimmicks the Biden’s administration assures the public will build on the atrocity known as Obamacare.
Like an old-time huckster selling a “tonic” for lumbago, Dr. Biden’s magic potion for upgrading Obamacare is just another failed promise. Here is designated useful idiot, Vice President Harris trotting out another Biden wet dream —“no one in our nation should have to go bankrupt just to get the health care they need…having medical debt because you were sick or injured should not lower your credit score and make it more difficult to secure the help you need to get out of debt.”
Right on Kamala, dead wrong as usual. That anodyne statement doesn’t even begin to touch the human suffering that is inextricably linked to the greed of the powerful crooks who control access to healthcare in America. Think of it, in the richest country in the world one-third of Americans, over one hundred million, are both sick and in debt. Getting further behind as they get sicker, many have no choice but bankruptcy. In the U.S. unlike any other major economy, unpayable medical costs are the reason for two thirds of all personal bankruptcies. Let’s be clear, these are not deadbeats who decided they didn’t need medical insurance. More than two-thirds of them bought into Obamacare and other scammy insurance ripoffs and still wound up going broke. U.S. medical insurance is a reflection of the overpricing of tests, treatments and drugs endemic in the healthcare industry. Here are a few comparisons that will knock your socks off. In Australia, it cost about $765 for one day in a hospital. In the U.S. $5,220. It’s not just hospitals, bankrupting Americans is an equal opportunity pastime. In the UK bypass surgery costs around $25,059. In the U.S. $78,318 (three time more expensive). Just goes to show when no one is guarding the hen house, the foxes have a field day.
Even bought-off elected officials don’t disagree (when they’re not up for reelection) — medical care is too damn expensive and out of the reach of the majority of Americans, insured or not. When it comes to solutions, greedy lawmakers reluctant to cross their big donors generally speak loudly and carry a very small stick.
A national health insurance system that guarantees medical care and treatment to all citizens would quickly solve two problems — removing the stigma of preventable illnesses and death that bedevil many Americans and lightening the load of medical debt that ruins millions of American lives. The blueprint for this system can be found everywhere you look. Only forty-two countries in the world join the U.S. in denying their citizens the basic right to healthcare.
What happens to a country and its people forced to deal with for-profit healthcare healthcare? Nothing good. The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other nation ($4.1 trillion, 19.7% of GDP) most of it flowing into the pockets of healthcare executives and doctors. What has this bought the American people — earlier death (two to four years shorter lives) compared to other advanced economies. We could go on and on: we’re heavier than people in countries with universal health systems, go to the hospital more often, die from preventable illnesses, and not surprisingl, have the highest rate of deaths of despair (suicides) than any peer nation. The pandemic is a good example of how badly for-profit healthcare treats its patients. With a multi-trillion dollar healthcare system, the pandemic should have been a non-event in the U.S. On the contrary, the U.S. was the worst place to live while the pandemic was raging.. In a country with 5% of the world’s population, more Americans got COVID (80.5 million) and died (1 million) than anywhere else on earth. Need we add that the system richly rewarded the three criminogenic pharmaceutical corporations who sold their COVID vaccines almost exclusively to the highest bidders. Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have made combined profits of $65,000 every minute. Their executives, including nine of them who became billionaires on the backs of an overpriced vaccine are probably on their third or fourth yacht as “ordinary” Americans sicken and die and others face staggering medical bills.
It’s crunch time here in America. The tragic fact and the one you won’t find in the administration’s finger pointing is that 40% of the nation’s coronavirus deaths (400,000) could have been prevented if the United States’ average death rate matched that of other industrialized nations. (Lancet Commission). Why doesn’t it? Lack of a national universal health care system is a huge part of the reason. The World Health Organization believes that universal healthcare is an effective way to stem the spread of coronavirus. Joe Biden disagrees. Clearly following the science is only on the Biden hit list when it agrees with him. Dr. Fauci, considered America’s health expert and the administration’s mouthpiece, doesn’t believe he has to follow the science because he is the science was finally dragged kicking and screaming to speak about universal healthcare. His “support” is carefully worded baloney mimicking healthcare industry talking points— “We’ve got to make sure that we have a health care system where no one can go without necessary health care… there’s this concern that if you make it universal, the quality will go down. It doesn’t necessarily have to go down at all…” This from the scientific genius wrong on everything from mask-wearing, herd immunity, gain of function research, natural immunity and the value of homeopathic COVID remedies.
In response to the drubbing the democrats are expected to take in November, Biden and his gang of incompetent policy makers propose to survey 2000 doctors to find out how their billing practices are making a huge swathe of Americans unable to afford medical care. Why not just ask the millions of Americans who need care but can‘t afford it? But that’s too dangerous. Maybe the answer they would come up with is the one answer that Joe’s big time campaign donors don’t want to hear— universal national health care.
Ironic, isn’t it? Looking for threats to America’s national security overseas while the biggest one (besides climate change) is in our midst —the hundreds of thousands of Americans who die every year because they cannot afford to see a doctor or have access to needed drugs or other medical treatments. Will America ever wise up? Not as long as there is big money to be made in our crooked for-profit healthcare system.
How many billionaires whose fortune is predicated on killing people for profit would agree that “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” (Gandhi)
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