The right wing here in Wisconsin is of course blowing a lot of smoke up your chimney that providing health care for everybody with something like the Healthy Wisconsin plan is unworkable, unAmerican, unwhatever.
Most people on the other hand, seems to respect personal money advisor Jane Bryant Quinn and in this week's Newsweek she lays out in in easy to read, common sense prose why universal coverage makes sense, and why what we are doing now doesn't.
She throws up the right's clay pigeon arguments against putting a coverage program in place and shoots them down. Here's my favorite:
Eeeek, your taxes would go up! Maybe not, if Sheils is right. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office have testified that the United States could insure everyone for the money we're spending now. But even if taxes did rise, you might still come out ahead. That's because your Medicare plan would probably cost less than the medical bills and premiums you're paying now.
My question here is really what role do the for-profit players (except drug processors and med device manufacturers) play in the health care system other than driving prices up and driving people out of hospitals? If you are all buzzed up about the great return your IRA is getting on these investments, then try not to think about there might come a time when a medical problem might wipe all those savings away, something that is all too common in this country.
I'm getting sick and tired of seeing this group or that holding fund raisers to pay for someone's medical bills. People have better things to do with their time.
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