Finally, A Progressive President

Obama is unable to say the words “single-payer health care.”

Some of you reading this are saying, “Yeah? So? What’s that, anyway … single-payer health care?” Well, simply put, its a health care system very similar to the Canadian system. It’s pretty much the same as HR 676, sponsored by John Conyers in Congress and it’s a lot like like the new bill (S.703) put forward by Senator Bernie Sanders. Basically, its new and improved Medicare for all.

Imagine there’s no HMO-style delivery system sitting right smack in the middle of your health care dollar, siphoning off 25-35% of your premium! The savings would be intense, as you might imagine. Imagine also that doctors are able to just treat you without ever having to wonder what level of care your insurance company will allow them to employ. Imagine that there are no forms to fill out and that you can go anywhere you like to seek treatment without any co-pays.

What’s the trick? No trick. I went to school in Canada and have ex-pat relatives who live there and the Canadian system is absolutely amazing. I could relate personal anecdotes all day about how terrible the American health care system can be and how great the Canadian system can be by comparison but, for the moment, lets just stick to the objective part of the equation.

It costs Canadians about $5200 per person for their single-payer health care system and this is about $2700 less per person than we will spend this year, per capita, in the United States. This means that we already spend more than enough to cover everybody. That’s the dirty little secret of corporate health care propaganda. It would actually be cheaper to cover everybody. Canadians also live a full year longer than we do. That’s another dirty little secret. You can do the math.

If, as the Rush Limbaugh crowd would attest, our new president is such a “socialist”, I have to wonder why he is not trumpeting this (seemingly, Communist) conspiracy that would make us all healthy while saving us money? Why are Democratic apologists falling all over each other trying to explain to us about “political feasibility” and achieving “the possible”.

“After all”, they say, “the guy’s only been in office for a few months. Give him a break. He’s got to work on these things one small step at a time.” He is currently advocating a forced HMO plan that would be no more effective or affordable than asking Dow Chemical to grow our food and his party is telling us he has a plan.

You’d think that this guy who just land-slided the election on a campaign of hope and change would be a far better strategist than these apologists are claiming. He just told his supporters that we are in desperate economic straits and that he would need to print several trillion dollars and give it out to people (mostly to people other than those who are actually hurting) and … everyone is actually buying it! They say, “Well, he’s got to do something, right?” Congress debates for about fourteen minutes and then says, “Okay, Barack. We trust you. You got to do what you got to do.”

We all know that Obama is riding a very short wave. It will end soon and now is probably the only time during his first four years that he might be able to approach congress with something this important and actually expect to get it passed. Even so, he’s pulling a Hillary Clinton on us instead and everyone seems to be buying it!

If Obama was really a socially-conscious guy, he would go on TV tomorrow and he would say, “Almost 20,000 Americans are dying every year because they lack access to health care and I can’t stand it anymore! Not on my watch! It’s a crisis and I’m going to fix it. I have a plan and it will save us money and it will also cover everyone. Similar models are being used in dozens of other countries around the world and it would simply be stupid not to follow their lead just because the HMO lobbies tell us we have to.”

But, he’s not going to do this and I don’t actually blame him. I blame you, the Obama voter. It’s your fault. You voted for him and you did so in a safe state where it made no difference at all. I told you he didn’t have a progressive bone in his body and you said, “That’s okay, Matt. We’ll hold his feet to the fire. Look at the movement! Look at all the young people! Look at all the excitement Obama generates.”

I’ll believe the “feet to the fire” rhetoric works when I see some evidence of it. Go ahead and pressure him like you all said you would. Please prove me wrong! I would really, honestly, love for you to do so. Please do so! Every day that you wait, about 50 more Americans will die. That’s more than six 9/11’s every year and you could prevent them all by simply making good on your campaign promise.