Barak Obama’s health care plan, as it has thus unfolded, should be a clear and final answer to all those who believed this young man would somehow change politics and create a more inclusive, just and caring society. The pinheads who screamed that socialism would reign and undermine the American way (greed, cynical self-interest, and lack of community) can at last rest comfortably in the certainty that President Obama is different in complexion only from his predecessors. It is clear that his campaign document, Blueprint for Change, would have been more aptly named, Blueprint for the Appearance of Change. Obama still has to announce many of the details of the plan but he has rejected categorically any form of single-payer public system. His reason: it would be too expensive given the current state of the economy. What a crock. Canadian labour costs have been and remain lower than American in great part because we have a single-payer public health care system Current closing and downsizing of Canadian automotive plants is due to political considerations not economics. American political debate would sound like a cacophony of scorched cats if GM were to close American plants and leave all the Canadian plants open. It would make the company far more competitive if that were the only criteria for restructuring. So Obama’s proclamation that cost factors prevent him from creating a health care system that would truly address the current crisis in medicine is just a lie. A stronger argument can be made that the opposite is true. The United States cannot afford not to create a single-payer health care system given the current state of the global economy if it wishes to remain competitive.
Surrounded by the executives of the major American health insurance corporations, Obama painted himself as a man of integrity and said he would fix health care regardless of the state of the economy. As I have said here before, Barack Obama is a master of image. He spoke of a consensus between the White House and the insurance companies to do what was necessary to see that all Americans would have access to affordable health coverage generously provided by that bastion of social conscience, the health insurance industry. The question arises what if someone still cannot afford the premiums set by these socially conscious corporations? First you will have to prove you can’t afford it and if the government decides you could by oh I don’t know living in your car instead of paying rent or whatever, then the talk is that a fine should be imposed. Only in the United States would anyone think that insurance at gunpoint would be an appropriate solution to assure all citizens have health insurance. Obviously this policy is not in the interests of uninsured Americans so why even think of it. Wait a minute. It was conceived in conjunction with the major insurance companies. You don’t think that the president and these leaders of American finance would scratch each other’s back and come up with a solution that benefits themselves do you? Gee, the insurance industry gets to extort millions in profits from a new source, those who can’t afford medical insurance, and the government led by Barak ‘the enforcer’ Obama sees that they cough up the dough or else. And Barack’s pay-off, I suspect a tidy little kickback to his re-election campaign. Might as well just call him President Barack ‘Milhous’ Obama and the corporate executives B. B. Rebozo clones. It is interesting on this note to
Save the cost of health care premiums and rent at the same time. Suicide: the most cost effective option under the Obama Plan.
mention that a criticism of Obama’s current nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayer, is her previous assertion that all campaign contributions are in reality bribes. She was simply stating the obvious. A person supports a candidate because she expects him to look after her interests and in a self-serving society like the United States that means the individual’s selfish interests not her communal interest. A bell should have gone off back in the campaign when Obama rejected public campaign financing. Guess we know why now. (Actually the bell did go off but the American public was so caught up in the election of the first Black president and the fulfillment of Martin Luther King’s dream they refused to listen to those voices. I guess that they just forgot that King’s dream was a society where a man would be judged by the content of his character rather than the colour of his skin.)
I chose to pay the rent. Now I have a permanent home.
Health care is a human right. Money was quickly found to fight an illegal war of aggression in Iraq. Obama while downsizing that war is ratcheting up another unwinnable war in Afghanistan and in the process propping up a government rife with war criminals. (While Obama continually tries to compare himself to Kennedy and Roosevelt, his behaviour increasingly resembles Nixon. Nixon while taking credit for troop reductions in Vietnam failed to inform the public that they were just secretly being deployed to Cambodia which led finally to the rise of Pol Pot and the systematic murder of millions. Now that’s the American way in action.) There is no question of cost for these ill-conceived adventures. They are being fought in the name of security while they have only succeeded in making Americans less secure and making the entire world more dangerous, and more in danger. A secure state is one that minimizes the possibility that any of its citizens will die needlessly or preventably. Health care then is a security issue. Not just programs to deal with potential pandemics but prompt, quality medical assistance to every citizens who needs it when they need it. Paying the rent or saving your life should not be a choice for a citizen of any civilized country. Today in the United States it is. Therefore the United States in NOT a civilized country. It is a barbaric despotism where the wealthy and powerful spend their time cheating the weak and vulnerable. And the ‘President of Change and Hope,’ Barack Obama has revealed his true self as the ‘President of No Change and No Hope.’
