The working class has no voice in the health care debate

The sickness industry is very lucrative

"Medicare is on track to consume 7% of GDP by 2035" writes Peter Coy in the June 6th issue of Bloomberg Business Week.  So what!  People are living longer and as we get older we need more medical care.  On the other hand, the US national debt is 96% of GDP and we pay billions of dollars a year in interest on that debt; $414 billion in Fiscal Year 2010, $383 billion in FY 2009, and $451 billion in FY 2008, that's over $1 trillion in three years and defense, or more accurately offense spending is close to 5% of US GDP, these predatory wars are costing trillions also.

The billions we spend on interest payments and war production could rebuild the infrastructure of the entire country and most likely bring everyone in the world basic health care.  The crumbling US infrastructure, something that only makes the news when a bridge collapses or a levy breaks for example, has been referred to as the "Third Deficit".  The shoddy infrastructure, apart from allowing hurricanes to wipe out entire communities also negatively affects US competitiveness.  A capitalist economy has to have decent roads, transportation systems and other important networks to compete in the global marketplace.

But the problem is a system of production where the object of the production of social needs is private gain.  What should be a basic human right and a need provided by society, medical care,  is a business like the production of all social necessities in a capitalist economy.  And the point of business is to make profit. That is the fundamental problem with the US health care system. What an uncivilized idea, that people should profit from sickness.

Medicare costs have to be brought down and the private sector want more opportunity to exploit this area. The politicians of both political parties will favor private for profit social services over public.  It doesn't matter what an individual thinks or says, if they're in the Democratic or Republican parties they will defend the private sector unless its an industry that is not profitable.  Democrats joined with Republicans to scuttle the "public option". Remember the public option?

The "pubic option" was blocked by Republicans and Democrats because "such a company would give an unfair edge over the private organizations in the exchange and would "unfairly out-compete" the private insurers".

Well whats wrong with that? In other words, it would provide better more comprehensive health care for all. The vast majority of us aren't business owners or rely for our income on investments in the pharmaceutical or health care industry, we just want decent heath care, want to feel secure knowing that if we get sick the resources are there to help us get well. But those who make profit out of the sickness industrial complex are against this and as they have two political parties that make laws and we have none. Consequently,  they they sent the "public option" on its merry way. Something that could provide better care more cheaply is not a good thing.

There's not that much difference between Obama's health plan and Paul Ryan's.  They both support the idea of health insurance exchanges, an absurd idea really.  These exchanges would be like a mall where people could shop for health insurance. "They're supposed to have four levels of plans to offer, of declining expense. The levels would be labeled "platinum," "gold," "silver," and "bronze." But an insurer would have to charge the same rates outside the exchange as it does inside, for comparable plans, among other new regulations." says the Christian Science Monitor.


The original plan was for the public option to exist in these exchanges to put pressure on the private alternatives to provide affordable care, but they even opposed that so these exchanges will only be composed of private plans.  First off, why should people have to buy insurance to receive medical care? What an inefficient and wasteful way of providing it.  It's no wonder the health insurance companies love Obama's plan, he's going to mandate that people buy insurance from them.  And what a barbaric idea that people should "shop" for medical care like they're shopping for boots. And it's legitimized by the various plans that the more money you have the better the care allowed you by the insurance industry that sells the plan.

US health care: the most costly with the worst coverage

Medicine is money, it's a business, and that's whats wrong with it. The private sector, free enterprise, the for profit capitalist system, whatever name you want to give it,  cannot provide decent health care for its citizens. It cannot provide housing or basic security in the 21st century and it certainly cannot provide work. We always hear of the horrors of feudal life for the rural peasantry but the word unemployment was not part of their language. 

The problem we face is that the debate is framed, as any issues are in society, by the representatives of capitalism in their two parties. Republican and Democrat don't differ on the fundamentals, just the details. Health care analysts believe a "compromise" can be found between the Obama and Ryan plans; "There hasn't been a serious bi-partisan negotiation", says Alice Rivlin, Bill Clinton's former budget director. So there's always an attempt at a compromise between two groups who are both hostile to the interests of working people. We have no voice in the issue.

A 2009 nine study from Harvard Medical School reported that, "Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care,..."  The study claimed that overall, "American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage."
This catastrophe, that more Americans die through lack of a basic right like good health care than drunk driving or homicide combined, is not due to lack of resources or the lack of technical or scientific know how necessary to provide people with health care.  It is a product of an economic system of production that has the rapacious thirst for profit as the driving force in society.

The US capitalist class is among the most ruthless of all of them.  It responded to attacks on its ability to make money like the events of 911, with a ferocious lashing out at anything and anyone that dared stand in its way and its goal of "Full Spectrum Dominance", any force that dared hinder the right of US capital to travel the world free of nasty obstacles like Unions and human rights campaigners.  It wages the most vicious war against the working class at home in its so-called War on Drugs which has helped the US become the country in the world with the most people behind bars. 

There are thousands of homeless people in the US, most of them veterans, the mentally ill and the poor.  Among the worst off are what they call the working poor, people who live out of their cars many of them, or have jobs but never earn enough to rise above a basic subsistence level existence.  Women children and the disabled are among those who suffer the most as the US capitalist class, after being dragged from the edge of the abyss through a bailout of public funds shifts the burden of its crisis on to the backs of its benefactors.

We saw what they did to Iraq after 911, "up to one a half million dead, one million widows nearly five million orphans and nearly five million displaced."  But its obvious that  they weren't driven by rage or concern at the deaths of a few thousand Americans on 911 as they are very aware of the deaths of many more Americans than that, deaths that are a result of their conscious polices, not just around the lack of health care but in many other areas as well.

So we have to wage a war of our own against this domestic enemy, against the capitalist class, their policies and their monopoly of political and economic life and we have to build strong links with its victims internationally.  Health care, education, housing/shelter, a collective say in how the resources of society that we create are allocated, these are all basic rights any civilized society and must be provided on demand----but we don't live in a civilized society, yet.

Society needs new managers.