Indecent proposals

When it comes to health care, it seems that the cry of the Rethuglican and the "moderate" Democrat is, "separate but equal". That is, poor people will get health care through government programs, while wealthier people will get health care through their employer or individually purchased health insurance (for those who can afford it).

For the "separate but equal" Demopublicans, "universal health care" means providing government health insurance for those who are too poor to afford to buy their own health insurance -- but *only* for those too poor to afford their own health insurance. So there will be two health care systems if the Demopublicans get their way: The privately funded health care system for people of means, and the public health care system for people who can't afford their own health insurance.

Of course, this is "separate but equal". Everybody is equal in Demopublicanland, even if there's two separate health care systems. Just like everybody was equal in Segregationland, even though there was two educational systems, one for blacks and one for whites.

Of course, in Brown V. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down "separate but equal" laws regarding education, noting that "separate but equal" was inherently unequal because the people with the least power would end up getting the least resources. And indeed, black schools were grossly inferior to white schools in the segregated South. Just as in Demopublican Health Care, the public health care system even today is grossly inferior to the private health care system. For example, most hospitals and doctors in California will no longer accept Medi-Cal, leaving those patients to go to grossly over-crowded county health clinics and county health centers (the ones that have not been closed due to the gross inadequacy of Medi-Cal funding, that is) where patients often must wait for over 24 hours in the waiting room to see a doctor and where patients regularly die in the waiting rooms while waiting to see a doctor. That's what "separate but equal" does for health care -- it kills people. And Demopublicans have no problem with that, because the people being killed are poor people or old people, rather than campaign contributors.

The only way to have a fair health care system for all Americans is to have one health care system that applies to everybody, whether rich or poor, white or black, rural or urban, young or old. "Separate but equal" is just as inherently unequal and inherently un-American as it was in 1956 when the U.S. Supreme Court made their ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, and it is shameful that nobody calls the Demopublicans on this. Medicare For All is the only way of making sure everybody is on an equal basis when it comes to the right to live, the most basic right of all. A health care system which kills some people for the crime of being poor, while cures others for no other reason than that they have money, is a health care system which is legalized murder, and no caring or righteous man could ever sanction or condone any such thing. Alas, in the land of America caring and righteous men, men of honor and ethics, are few and far between...

-- Badtux the Health Care Penguin