A serious, important fight is in play south of the 49th over the issue of the RIGHT of citizens to health care insurance. Canadians may complain of the way in which centre-right governments have fed our Single Payer through a fiscal eyedropper, but poll after poll indicates that Canadians define themselves by our Healthcare system where all receive medical care in response to need, not in relation to the size of their purse or the quality of private insurance provisions.
During last year’s US Democratic Primaries, all three leading candidates -- Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Edwards proposed variant plans that included the Public Option. President Obama’s administration is now fighting for a publically-funded option where all US citizens are able to choose a quality government health-program. Granted, this is not Single Payer by a long shot. But Public Option provides an “insurance exchange”, where individuals who are not covered by either their employers or public programs such as Medicare or Medicaid or Veteran’s Administration or the military, will be able to enroll in an insurance plan.
This option does something very important: passage of Public Option would increase the number of US citizens who get their health insurance through the government. And if the program proves a success in people’s lives there will be a growth in a strong national health-plan and a gradual weakening of the grip of the profiteering private insurance companies.
The US insurance companies know this very well, and fear the presence of a successful public model. They fear that their monopoly on the people’s health will have to face public competition with a sane and generous public provision. They fear competition of competing systems representing competing philosophies.
At this moment the US health insurance companies with their congressional Republican proxies are doing all they can to derail and smash the Public Option. They trot out all the old bogeymen of “Big Government” that we have seen them employ in issue after issue. Is President Obama fighting hard for his Health plan? We have seen him taking the case to the people in a recent Town hall, and his cabinet officers continue to press the case. But his plan requires public support and public education to build pressure for this mandate. Canadians have many ties to The United States -- by marriages, relatives, trade, labour unions and so on. We can help support the American people by informing ourselves talking about this issue and talking about what’s at stake.
It seems that US Monopoly Capital and the Rightwing Republican party have chosen this as the battle with which to defeat Obama. They think they have a winning card given the past failure of a public health plan in Clinton’s first term. They prey upon the fears of collectivism instilled into the American people and replay their new demagogic advertisements. Washington is swarmed by their lobbyists. If Obama’s plan is defeated the hand of Big Business will be strengthened. Our current government is a tool of the same interests that oppose Obama’s health initiative. Canadians’ social plans would inevitably be jeopardized.
The lesson here is an easy one: Solidarity: openings to health care reform do not come round frequently in America!
Readings On Public Option:
Follow the Issue in Political Affairs & Peoples Weekly World: http://www.politicalaffairs.net/
http://www.pww.org/
Specific Articles:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_public_option_and_the_hope_of_health_care
_reform
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8592/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090610_why_so_scared_of_a_public_plan/
http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009062410/health-insurance-nightmares-shared-our-readers
http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009062410/why-health-insurers-dont-control-costs
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