Hope may spring eternal but some things are guaranteed never to change. Add to the list of inevitables like death and taxes, the one-of-a-kind American corporate, profit-obsessed healthcare industry. Did I say industry? Right, that’s what it has become. Gone are the trappings of what used to be called the healing profession that came complete with the committed doctor who made house calls. In its place, the U.S. government has allowed a cabal of profit and non-profit operators to make healthcare a colossus rivaling in power and profit other industrial behemoths in defense, tech and energy. Which brings us to the heart of the dilemma confronting the American people. What do you do when you live in a rich country that can afford to lavish oodles of dough on one of the most corrupt countries in Europe but can’t afford a national health care system that would restore healthcare to its original calling and provide a cost-effective solution to the millions without insurance or healthcare, others who go bankrupt even with insurance from sky-high medical bills and saddest of all the women and their infants who die in childbirth because they cannot afford medical care. The answer of the American public is a general sense of apathy and disinterest. A recent effort to “force the vote” which in 2020 called on what passes for democratic progressives in the House of Representatives to withhold their vote on Nancy Pelosi’s bid for the Speakership (the speaker is second line to replace the president) until she agreed to bring a Medicare-for-all proposal up for a floor vote. They didn’t and she didn’t. Business as usual in the swamp that U.S. politics has become. Has people power become obsolete in a corporate controlled oligarchy? The answer may be found in a little-noticed but powerful signal coming out of the election results in Oregon. Check out The Gift That Never Stops Taking — U.S. Healthcare Profiteers Racking in the Dough and you decide.
