The Great Health Care Takeaway

This also applies to working people in general, who cannot simply wait for jobs to be created or wages and benefits to regain their past value. Health care is a key component to a worker's standard of living, and it is now unreasonable to expect any progressive health care reform from the Democrats or Republicans. The above policies have not improved health care, though they have decreased the cost of health care for corporations and governments, since patients are paying more for fewer services. The above policies have also not increased the number of workers with health insurance. In fact, the number of people without health care continues to grow every year, the most recent figure stands at over 52 million!  Obama's plan to force people to buy crappy insurance they couldn't afford to actually use -- if the law survives the Supreme Court -- will do nothing of substance to help. 

The above health care policies are the natural result of a health care system based on the principles of private profit.  Corporate profits demand that companies provide the least amount of health care services at a minimal cost. From this vantage point, health care is a commodity that is bought by those who can afford it, instead of it being the human right of every person, as the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts. Europe has already proved that a nationwide, single payer system is vastly superior when it comes to quality, cost, availability, and results.  

The single payer system did not come into existence from the benevolence of kind governments, but from the demands of people in the street. Organized workers must fight to maintain their benefits; unorganized workers must organize to fight for better insurance; and older workers/retirees must fight to maintain and expand Medicare. The logical end to such struggles would be to demand a Medicare For All system, financed by taxing the wealthy and corporations.   

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org) 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-01-29-medicare-copays_N.htm

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-24/medicare-spending-slows-as-hospitals-improve-care-peter-orszag.html

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-07-05-SC-cuts-medicaid_n.htm

http://www.towerswatson.com/research/1935

http://www.mckinsey.com/us_employer_healthcare_survey.aspx