Healthcare for All?

President Obama has made his way to the White House by appearing to make a lot of promises and using rhetoric that portrays the next 8 years as an era of change from the Bush Administration.

The biggest challenge he has ahead of him is the economic meltdown of the neoliberal financial system. Yet, during the health summit he convened this past week, he has once again affirmed his position against providing universal healthcare that covers every single American. He has sided with the for-profit health insurance companies instead of the American employee and employer.

The current health insurance system places a heavy burden on both non-health insurance companies and most American workers. The only solution to alleviate the financial burden on both is to get rid of the for-profit health insurance system and replace it with a not-for-profit health insurance system. The American taxpayer will end up spending less on health insurance even though the Medicare tax would increase while accessing the same quality health care we currently have. Such a solution has already been introduced in Congress as House Resolution 676 (Conyers) and at the state level in California as Senate Bill 810 (Leno). The former has nearly 100 co-sponsors and the latter has passed cleared both the California State Assembly and the California Senate in both 2006 and 2008. Furthermore, nearly 3 out of 5 ordinary Americans and physicians support a not-for-profit health insurance system.

President Obama and Senator Kennedy are ignoring the will of the people and seem to be more concerned with their political legacy. If they pass their version of "universal" healthcare, their only legacy will be that of putting profit above people. In a real democracy, this would not stand.