I was skeptical that health care would actually be tackled in a Democratic first term without a recession driving it and now, for obvious reasons, I think it may actually happen. Polls are showing that the economy and health care are the two top issues in the election.
The fact is that they are intertwined. The American system of employer based health care is falling apart. Big companies are being squeezed by retiree health benefits and small businesses are drowning in health care costs. And needless to say, being unemployed means saying goodbye to your health insurance (or COBRA costs that are obscene.) Add that to the huge number of underinsured and uninsured and you have the makings of a full fledged emergency. [my em]
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Most certainly.
Big Healthcare and Big Pharma have been allowed to run as wild as the mortgage industry and it's time for them to be reined in as well. Health care shouldn't be an employer-based system. It should be a single-payer (government) affair, government keeping costs low by negotiating volume pricing with Pharma (as Canada and most European nations do). The day health care became a 'for-profit' industry (thank you President Reagan) foreshadowed whis crisis. It serves no one's interest when it costs $500 - $1000 just to walk into an emergency room (a lot of homes that are in foreclosure are there as a result of a health care issue that swamped the owners' finances). It serves no one's interest when people go bankrupt because of a health care issue.
It is time to do away with private health insurance and impose stricter regulation on the health care industry as a whole. The American middle class (and that includes small business) will never be able to regain its footing unless health care is addressed in the same breath as the financial crisis.
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