Universal Healthcare

One of the most important effects (and  sometimes, causes) of travel is awareness of what’s going on in the world.  Recently, a controversial healthcare bill passed to the U.S. Senate.  Here’s my deal with it:

The core tenet here shouldn’t be controversial.  Everyone should have access to healthcare.  End of story.  Anyone who says otherwise, that people should be denied a basic human right based on income or social status, is basically a prick.  I honestly don’t see how such people can defend that stance and think that they’re right.  But that’s just me.  I acknowledge that I am very opinionated and sometimes prone to be judgmental based on that.

Now, I live in the North.  Maybe 45 minutes away from the Canadian border.  We basically compare everything politically to being better or worse than Canada, simply because it’s so easy for us to get there.  Canada, as I’m sure you know, has a universal healthcare system.  If you’re not sure how it works, in simplest terms, taxpaying Canadian citizens pay a tax that goes to providing healthcare.  And then for most medical procedures, it’s free for you (this is vastly oversimplified, I think, but you get the idea).

In most arguments I hear against universal healthcare, something is said along the lines of “oh, well I heard that in Canada, you have to wait like 6 hours just to get seen in the emergency room!  It’s all universal healthcare’s fault!”  Well for one thing, that is pretty much just the most extreme cases.  It’s funny that no one who argues against it ever so much as acknowledges successes of universal healthcare systems.  I’ve heard counts of travelers in need of medical treatment who were treated quickly and efficiently and who got away with no more than an equivalent $60 bill (and that only because they were a foreigner) for procedures that likely would have cost upwards of $1000 in the U.S.

What boggles my mind is – why?  Why does it seem like other countries can make it work and we can’t?  This Matador post makes an excellent point.  Socialism, a harmless word in many countries, is the dirtiest of all political curses here.  Want to tear down an opponent’s political campaign?  Just throw out a few communist and socialist accusations and your work is done.

I think it’s plain to see that something needs to be done about this, sooner rather than later.  So, I leave you with this – if socialism in America is such a scary idea, why do we believe in so many socialist ideas, like a minimum wage, child labor laws, Medicare, food stamps, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and social security?

Additional reading: Becoming A Socialist Nation – very interesting article.