We have made some progress, at least in the public discourse, since Sicko came out: No longer do politicians focus exclusively on how to provide health insurance for all-that is, sending the insurance companies millions of guaranteed customers for unguaranteed policies, with the taxpayers largely footing the bill. Some officeholders are actually trying to debate how to provide health care for all. But as demonstrated by recent studies on health-industry lobbying and insurance contributions to selected members of Congress, we still have a way to go.
As of this writing, the insurance lobby and other lobbies have stepped up their efforts to kill any genuine public option in pending health-care reform legislation, on grounds that any single-payer program would undermine the insurance companies. (I have already written on some insurance-corporate costs that might tend to undermine the industry competitively, such as lobbying expenses. Industry proposals for reining in insurance company costs notably do not include the burdens of lobbying and political donations.)
So here, as one more small step for humankind, is a fall-back position. Should offering a single-payer plan available to all age groups be defeated, here is a modest proposal: Expand Medicare to cover young adults in America, the eighteen-to-twenty-six-year-old population.
Keep Medicare healthy by including the healthy
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