We are a Community. Not an Island Unto Ourselves

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.” -  Abraham Lincoln

When recently asked by Stephen Colbert on his Tuesday 9/17/19 Late Night show if her Medicare for all plan would raise the income taxes for hard working class families, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren tapped-danced around it explaining how “the wealthiest were going to pay more and hard working class families will see their costs go down.”   Her redirected narrative was an explanation of the cost savings these families would experience without conceding that it would require them to see higher payroll taxes to accomplish this.

When I see Senator Warren doing this I become as uncomfortable as some Trump supporters who hear him say the Syrian Kurds are better off after we abandoned them.  While the former is a form of obfuscation, the latter is a moral betrayal, but both are sources of frustration to voters that continue to generate distrust with elected officials

Everyone knows raising income taxes is what it requires to achieve Medicare for all.  Avoiding the obvious only gives your enemies an opening to dramatically twist the facts to fit some apocalyptic scenario that will play to the worst fears of their constituencies.

Everyone knows raising income taxes is what it requires to achieve Medicare for all.  Avoiding the obvious only gives your enemies an opening to dramatically twist the facts to fit some apocalyptic scenario that will play to the worst fears of their constituencies.

Democrats who support a single payer health care bill need to quit white washing this issue and be honest with the American people.  Polls show “that 70 percent of Americans now support Medicare-for-all, otherwise known as single-payer health care, according to a new Reuters survey. 

A December 2017 Gallup polled showed that 71% of those polled say our current for-profit healthcare system is "in a state of crisis" or "has major problems" and even reflected that “Republicans have become more critical in the past decade”.  

In her circumlocution of Colbert’s question she did spell out in detail how her plan would lower costs for middle income working families even as it raises their taxes.  It is those details that need to follow the affirmation that “yes, your payroll taxes will increase, but …”, so Americans can understand that though there may be no free rides, there is a plan here to fix our broken health care system while keeping more of their earned income.

Will it be a perfect system?  Of course not.  But then neither is the current for-profit system where the median amount spent annually on both premiums and out-of-pocket costs for households with employer provided insurance ranges from $1,500 (Hawaii) to $5,540 (South Dakota).   Health insurance providers often deny coverage whenever and wherever they can, give consumers fewer choices based on where they live and add to the long-term financial cost with burdensome record keeping imposed upon physicians and hospitals.

But even those experts who try to put a more positive slant on our current system realize that “there are some things that have to be imposed from above,”  according to Shannon Brownlee, senior vice president of the Lown Institute, a health advocacy organization.  

America ran dead last in a Commonwealth Fund, 11-country comparison on their healthcare systems.   Consumers are essentially left to defend themselves to battle outrageous rising costs left to them after doctors, hospitals and health insurance providers have negotiated how best to preserve their profits.  Since 1990, health care costs have risen 276 percent as wages, when adjusting for inflation, have barely grown at all.

Health Care coverage in America, like public schools, good roads & bridges and parks should be considered a right, not a privilege.  It’s an essential that only governments can provide at costs that eliminate price gouging and ensures that economic productivity isn’t stifled by a labor force burdened with out-of-control medical expenses.