Medicare for All
Healthcare should be a guaranteed right of all people. Healthcare for all should be guaranteed and funded by the government as in “universal healthcare,” or “medicare for all”. As we have seen with covid and other diseases it only makes sense to cover everybody in the U.S. regardless of their immigration or visitor status.
Medicare for All exists in a variety of forms across the industrial nations of the world. We thus should be able to create the best Medicare for All in the world! It is insane that the U.S. does not have Single Payer Medicare for All like most of the nations in the industrial developed world. Millions of Americans have died and tens of millions have suffered from the lack of affordable quality healthcare.
Although Democrats have had total control of California for years and their platform calls for Medicare for All, the corporate beholden Democratic Party always finds a reason not to pass Medicare for All during the past ten years despite supposedly progressive Democratic Governors. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was Governor, he twice vetoed in 2006 and 2008 the only Democratic legislative Medicare for All bill ever passed in California. Despite increasing Democratic control in California where Republicans effectively have no say, Democrats continue to refuse to pass Medicare for All despite overwhelming support among the public.
Because of how poor our current profit driven insurance driven healthcare has been, we should expect some initial increased costs caring for people that have long been neglected. As everyone first starts getting the complete affordable healthcare that have been denied in the past, overall healthcare costs will go down gradually in future years.
With the government covering all of Medicare for All costs, the government would have a tremendous incentive to make all our lives safer in the products we buy, the food we eat, in promoting lifelong healthcare, in creating safer work and living environments, in a less toxic environment in our air, water and ground and more.
I have heard many great ideas on how Medicare for All would pay for itself. I would like to offer an additional way that I have never heard mentioned. The top 25 products or services that are shown to cause adverse medical conditions in people, should be charged a surcharge to cover those medical costs. For example, if car accidents cause several $billion in health costs each year, then the that cost over the average life of the car should be added to the manufacturing cost of the car. This would help the government in covering healthcare costs from car accidents. This shouldn’t add significant costs to the car manufacturer but would save the taxpayers significant in paying for Medicare for All. There would be additional incentive for car manufacturers to make safer vehicles!
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