My latest LTE to the local newspaper.
I have to admit I am enjoying the conniption fit our Republican friends are having over the coming implementation of Obamacare. As a supporter of single payer, I myself was not to happy with its passing as it certainly a giveaway to the health insurance companies who for me rate right up there with the tobacco companies when it comes to moral values. As we pay around 18% of our GDP while most of the rest of industrialized world pays around 12% the difference is about a trillion dollars a year more as anyone with an 8th grade level in math will be able to compute. While paying double per person we rank 36th in the world in terms of medical outcomes, do not cover everyone while we let millions go without the ability to fight a major health crisis. Our Republican friends tell us it is all about Freedom. Unlike the the rest of the industrialized world we get the freedom to watch our friends and neighbors die, suffer and go bankrupt needlessly. These freedoms only cost us an extra trillion dollars a year! Jesus would be so proud.
There is a hidden reason why those that control the Republican party are trying to stop Obamacare. When proposed, the health insurance companies licked their chops at the prospects at the millions of new customers they would have and to evade single payer they went for it. What they did not count on was the states themselves could use the legislation to implement single payer as Vermont is doing now and several other states are seriously considering. As states implement single payer the results will be the same as in other industrialized countries. The cost of healthcare will fall, everyone will be covered and the outcomes will be better and no one will go bankrupt because of medical bills. Sadly for our Republican friends they will no longer have the freedom to watch their friends and neighbors suffer, die or go bankrupt needlessly. You cannot have everything. I have to admit the President played his cards beautifully.