Health care should be a Democratic "slam dunk" issue, and in terms of the inefficiency of our current system, I think it is. However, I think Democrats are completely missing the national security implications of our dysfunctional health care system, and are failing to hold our "Oh, so National Security" Republicans to task for having put the nation at risk for the sake of a warped philosophy that health care is some sort of privilege.
The notion that the U.S. has the world's best health care is just weird. The fact is, U.S. health care is so expensive (more than double the cost of comparable systems) that the typical American cannot afford access to this supposedly sublime level of care. This doesn't just apply to the 47 million or so uninsured, it also applies to the millions more who can barely afford their insurance premiums, but have nothing left in the budget for co-pays--which means they're just as locked out of health care as the uninsured.
But the impact isn't just on working class private citizens. Health care costs suck the life out of businesses. The military is just as exposed to the problems of out-of-control health care costs as any other corporate body, and the result is impinging on national defense. More after the fold...
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