PHOTO/STEVE RHODES
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) may have given more people access to health insurance who didn’t have it before, but this law is not giving the people what they truly need—a guarantee of quality health care for all. Besides forcing people to buy insurance, the ACA uses government funds to subsidize the privately owned, profit-driven health care industry, especially the insurance companies, and it doesn’t even cover everyone! We can’t fix a broken private system. We need a health care system owned by the people.
In essence the ACA partially nationalized some aspects of the health care industry, but in the interest of the corporations. For example, according to National Public Radio, the ACA “will provide around $1 trillion in subsidies to low-and middle-income Americans over the next decade to help them pay for health insurance.” Of course, that money ultimately goes to the insurers. We need to nationalize the industry in the interest of the people. We need to eliminate the private health insurance industry and have a publicly owned health care system that provides health care to everyone at government expense.
Other countries have done something similar. According to Henry Blodget, writing in Slate magazine, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) “now costs the UK less than half as much per person as the U.S. system does.” The NHS provides publically funded diagnostic care and treatment for any illness or health concern, from colds to cancer, free of charge to most UK residents. It ensures that anyone can receive the medical care they need regardless of age, their health, or financial circumstances.
We could have a system where the drug and medical device companies and the hospitals are publicly owned, and the doctors and other health care workers are public employees, and quality care is guaranteed to everyone. This would be a step in the right direction. But it’s just the first step on a longer road.
Computers and robots are replacing labor. Many jobs are disappearing and wages are falling for the jobs that remain. Under these conditions, it’s impossible to continue with an economy based on people having jobs and using their wages to buy what they need. How can we truly lead healthy lives without the ability to support ourselves? Out of necessity we will have to move toward a cooperative society, where the people own the means of producing what we need, and everything—including health care—is simply distributed according to need.
We already have the means to produce everything we need. Imagine the society we could have. All of us would have access to good housing, healthy food, and the time and facilities for exercise. We would have access to any preventive care we needed to stay healthy, and we’d get all the health care we needed if we were sick or injured. We wouldn’t have the stress of worrying about being able to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves and our children.
We could truly have the opportunity to be healthy and realize our full potential. Some of the vast resources squandered today on lining the pockets of a wealthy few could be put to work curing cancer and other deadly diseases.
We are not fighting to fix a dying system; we are fighting for a whole new world. Nationalizing health care in the interest of the people is a step along this road.
