In 2000, Kerry Healey (candidate for state rep) said the following:
Massachusetts has dramatically reduced uninsured population (down 50 percent since 1996) and 97.2 percent of Massachusetts children now insured. Current program can achieve universal health coverage without increasing bureaucracy and taxes.
Also, Kerry Healey has been touting the new MA health care law as “a crowning achievement of our administration,” and that law is routinely described — including by Mitt Romney — as “universal” or as covering “everyone.”
Yet I received a piece of anti-Deval Patrick direct mail today from the MA GOP. The mailing urges me to “Join Team Healey Today” and to “Just Say NO to Deval Patrick.” Among other things, it accuses Patrick of:
Moving to the Extreme Left…
“When somebody tells you we can’t have both … quality healthcare and universal healthcare, say, yes we can.”
–Deval Patrick, Boston Globe, May 18, 2005
OK, so apparently being in favor of both quality and universal health care constitutes being part of the “extreme left.” Since Healey surely doesn’t consider herself part of the “extreme left,” she must be opposed to quality universal health care. Is she against quality health care? That seems odd — why would anyone favor crappy health care? Or maybe it’s universal health care she opposes? But that’s a bit hard to square with her past statements.
Or maybe she’ll denounce the contents of the mailing, saying that the party doesn’t speak for her? Maybe, though I’m not holding my breath. And until she does, it’s another entry in the box.
is the perhaps the moderate position. Or perhaps Somewhat Universal Healthcare. Why does anyone listen to what the GOP defines as the “center”?
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I don’t understand the politics here since careful surveys show that the majority of Americans favor universal healthcare even if it means a rise in taxes.
People favor “universal healthcare” philosophically. But the majority of Americans oppose 1) any sort of government-run health care insurance system and 2)more importantly, any “reforms” that they they are convinced may reduce the quality of their own health care.
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But don’t take my word for it, here’s what the folks at Gallup polling say in summarizing the current numbers:
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And this is exactly the line that Healey and the GOP are trying to straddle. They support “universal health care” only in the sense that we will supposedly achieve that in MA by making it illegal to not have health care insurance. They remain oppossed to the government providing health care insurance and only reluctantly support even the tiniest new taxes to subsidize private coverage for the poorest families.
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Finally, I would argue that it will take a major shift in public opinion to overcome the powerful, monied interests (particuarly the private health insurance companies and the big pharmaceutical companies) that owe their success and ultimately their existence to the current system. Tepid support for the concept of “universal coverage” will not be able to overcome heated well-funded opposition to “socialized medicine” any time soon.
is MANDATORY health care. Crappy yes, but mandatory? Ya, well declining empires do things this way. A normal person can not afford such things so hopefully he takes the risk of not getting sick and not having health insurance. Well, then the doctors start leaving the state, hmm, can’t have that. In order to have a working health system one must have a working economy with real jobs adding value to an economic system and not the circle of gold style economy we have now. Anybody old enough to remember the circle of gold? Circle of platinum? And would you admit it?