Kamala Harris to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ single-payer health care bill.
And they told me this could never, ever happen.
This news made my day.
Please share widely!
Signs of Life in the Democratic Party.
Reality-based commentary on politics.
Health care needs to be a citizen’s right, not something a consumer might be able to afford. Democrats desperately need to stand for something, embrace citizenship and government as good things. Democrats need to see the banking sector as a service sector, not a governing sector. Democrats need to embrace the working class, acknowledge and celebrate that all wealth and prosperity emanates from the working class, not the CEO’s and entrepreneurs. Democrats need to insure that our working class is well cared for, protected, nurtured and defended from attacks of the rent seekers, the rentiers, the 1%, the wealthy parasitic ones who are now in total control of the Republican Party and sadly, in control of much of the Democratic Party.
While I tend to agree that healthcare should be a human right, it is even more important that food, clothing and shelter also be considered rights by the same logic. I find it strange that there appears to be little interest on the left for pushing for universal guarantees of housing, clothing or food.
We do have public housing and food stamps for those who need them, but not many people go bankrupt as a result to the grocery or clothing store.
I can grow my own food. I can grow cotton, raise sheep and make my own clothes. I can build a shelter.
When I can perform heart surgery on myself, you might have a point.
Medical care, as it exists in the 21st Century is not affordable for anyone other than the super wealthy. As such, it must be funded by a collective, for the benefit of those in the collective. In this case, the citizens of the USA.
I view public education as the best analogy to health care. Just as society has long embraced its obligation to provide education to every resident (and that should today be extended to include college education), we should also provide health care to every resident.
One of the best ways to ensure a vibrant and prosperous society is to do all we can to create a healthy society.
BTW, it doesn’t sound as though you’ve either grown cotton or raised sheep. Neither is remotely available to working class men and women, especially in MA. While I agree that neither is comparable to heart surgery, we should not kid ourselves about the challenges working class men and women face in providing the basic necessities of life.
No, but I could. And the reality is that through my labor, I can afford clothing, housing, and the rest. Health care is the exception.
Prior to the 1920’s, the average American spent about $100 on healthcare. Today, that figure is $8,000 .
This is not because we were healthier back then or stoic, it was simply because there was nothing to buy. There were no antibiotics., vascular surgery, no anesthesia and so on.
Health care only is possible of we band together.
I agree with you about health care.
You’ve spent most of the last two years here arguing against this statement: “And the reality is that through my labor, I can afford clothing, housing, and the rest.” In fact, this is just not true any longer.
Regarding cotton and sheep, come back to me after you’ve picked a bale of cotton — which, by the way, is the very first of a long series of labor-intensive steps in producing cloth. Slave labor is the sole reason that cotton was a viable cash crop in the south before the civil war. The absence of slave labor is why the south never regained prosperity by growing cotton (never mind the toll on the land).
If you haven’t already, I suggest you try your hand at carding, spinning, and then weaving or knitting a garment from raw wool — even that jumps over the challenge of raising the sheep and shearing the wool.
The industrial revolution was driven by textile mills, precisely because without that, this process is unsustainably labor-intensive to keep more than a handful of people clothed.
The more immediate obstacle to both cotton and sheep is that both require large amounts of land, a commodity not available to working class men and women then or now.
The bottom line, in my view, remains that we MUST forcibly reallocate wealth from the very top of the wealth distribution to the rest of us. The only peaceful way to accomplish that is by strong and effective government action, in response to a body politic that demands it.
The premise that any significant number of working class men and women can somehow “go back to nature” and live by the fruit of their manual labor is an idyllic myth that has absolutely no foundation in actual current or future reality. The very concept of “working class” implies an industrial-age model where a “worker” trades his or her labor in exchange for a wage. That isn’t possible without the infrastructure (and abuses) of industry.
That’s the reason, in my view, for why society (through government, its agent) MUST provide health care, education, water, electricity, heat, housing, and food. Society may use market mechanisms to allocate some of that, but society MUST impose structure and constraints to avoid the very abuses that are so prevalent today.
The premise that an unregulated “free market” will accomplish this in any kind of sustainable and acceptable way is a dangerous right-wing lie.
To accomplish that, we need to elect individuals who are dependent on us, not the 1%.
For the past 40 years, Democrats have failed to do that.
Bernie Sanders was as close as we’ve come, but even he was flawed with his “free college for all” position.
I just went to Congress.gov to look at Senator Sander’s health care bill. Its not there, which means its not been filed. When do we get to see it?
When it’s filed. What’s your point?
Si yo fuera un político honesto en Boston:
1. Siempre defendería un SISTEMA DE SALUD CON COBERTURA UNIVERSAL. Preguntaría a cada representante electo de Boston a nivel municipal, estatal y federal su posición en este tema publicando su respuesta (Sí/No) en el sitio Web de la ciudad de Boston. De esta forma, cualquier ciudadano podría saber cuál es la posición de sus representantes en el problema más importante que tenemos en América hoy en día.
2. Visitaría todas las escuelas públicas en un período de dieciocho meses. Me reuniría con padres, profesores, estudiantes, personal no docente y otras partes interesadas y presentaría un plan para eliminar el traslado en autobús de alumnos de barrios marginales, asegurar la igualdad e introducir un proyecto integral para la ciudad a más tardar para el 1ro de julio de 2019. Esto conllevaría un ahorro aproximado de cien millones de dólares al año que podríamos invertir en escuelas, incluyendo también una nueva escuela estatal dedicada a las Ciencias, Tecnología, Ingeniería y Matemáticas (STEM) de última generación. Esta escuela se construiría en conjunto con el MIT y otras grandes universidades científicas locales. Hasta que se construya esta escuela no votaré por ninguna subida de sueldo a ningún funcionario público.
3. Realizaría una auditoría profesional a las escuelas públicas de Boston.
If I were an honest Boston Politician:
I would always advocate for UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. I would ask each elected official from Boston on the City, State, and Federal level where they stand on this issue and publish the Yes/No answers online so the citizens know where their officials stand on the most important issue in America today.
I would visit all the Public Schools in an 18 month period. I’d meet with parents, teachers, students, stakeholders and present a plan to eliminate busing, insure equity and present a comprehensive plan to the City on July 1, 2019. This would save nearly 100 million dollars a year that we can invest in the schools including a new State of the art STEM school to be built in conjunction with and as a pipeline to MIT and other great local science Universities. I would not vote for any pay raise for any public official until this school is built.
I would professionally audit the Boston Public Schools.
My point is that this it is supposedly a big deal that Sanders has a bill. Harris agrees to co-sponsor it, which might help her with the Sanders progressives who have been critical of her. But, lo and behold, there is not bill yet. If Sanders is so serious about this, if its the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, why not file it? The details matter, both practically and politically. If he is serious, he should put it on the table. He does not have much of a record as a legislator. Perhaps this is why.
What’s your point?.