PrioritiesWith the deathly mess American government and the privatized medical industry have made with its COVID slapdash strategy, it seems a wee bit timely to design a universal healthcare system for those who need it (most of us), in conjunction with existing privatized healthcare for those who want it. 150,000,000 Americans have healthcare tied to their jobs. Just imagine yourself choosing to work at a job and not having your choice determined by co-pay medical coverage? What universal healthcare means is the security of knowing you can see a doctor for treatment. It also unleashes a person and his family from an employer's undeniable grip over one's life as governments have done in Europe and around the globe. Universal healthcare is about freedom of choice as well as a kind of camaraderie with the rest of the developed world.We are all aware of someone in the healthcare field who has been terribly dumped on and overwhelmed with stressful COVID responsibilities, fears, exhaustion, sickness and death. A long-time lack of sufficient funding and terrible planning between the Siamese twins of privatized healthcare and private enterprise, never came close to addressing a problem known to be waiting in the wings since SARS, with the tragic embarrassment of excessive deaths and suffering for Americans. It is an indictment of our privatized numbers-oriented leadership for pursuing the enchantment of profit figures over our existential needs.Our priorities are misshapen. A zillion cheers for overwrought medical personnel for doing their best with the skewed management and planning choices beyond their control. Rather than the kind of privatized medicine that has fallen prey to Wall Street dreams of riches, the pandemic has revealed that we must return to a community centered model that serves everyone with some bit of equality. The medical industry needs to re-open its closed hospitals and build new ones, we need more schools to train doctors, nurses and medical personnel to serve our physical, psychological and social welfare needs. American people need our tax money put toward reliable public health planning for future epidemiological disasters. In the most recent year, an "extra" $25 billion was provided by the 2 political parties to the Department of Defense during this COVID crisis. Why wasn't that money put toward COVID and redesigning our healthcare system? What's wrong with our leaders? 800,000 Americans are dead already. Who do these 2 parties work for? It's the same old chant, "The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming" and now the Chinese are coming too. Somehow, in spite of that old paranoid war buzzard James Forrestal's famous 1949 pre-suicide quote, we're still here. We need a healthcare system that works for everyone without servitude to one's employer or to the defense industry's vocal apostles who gladly raid our pocketbooks with notions of impending rampage from all corners of the globe.This is 2022; COVID is now exponential. The post WWII-1950's ideas of limitless exploitation of our Earthly paradise and the American exceptionalism our leaders still blibity-blab about, are outdated and have exhausted their vitality and cannot but fail us in the present moment. We used to drive Corvairs, too, until it became common knowledge that those vehicles had life shortening designs! This is a brand-new era with its digital reconstitutions of our lives, its spectacularly challenging climate contingencies, and its COVID mind blowing reappraisals of everything under the Sun. In light of the virus' global impact, new dreams and paradigms are formulating in human minds so we can continue to be here. The past choices are not bad per se, just old and worn out like a favorite shirt that needs to be replaced. It's time. The future is now. TEMPUS FUGIT...time flies.
Nick Santoro
1.16.22
re: James Forrestal, "The Russians are coming, the Russians are Coming" Google
re: SARS: click here
Re: jobs with health benefits: According to recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), about 156,199,800 Americans, or around 49 percent of the country's total population, receive employer-sponsored health insurance (also called group health insurance).Jan 11, 2021 google
re: $25 Billion: .ausa.org/news/defense-budget-gets-25-billion-boost
re; Corvair: What did Ralph Nader say about the Corvair?
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
