Let's Stop Reforming Health Care

by Dick Mac

I was raised in poverty. Standard post-War American poverty. Not abject poverty like the majority of the world's citizens, but plain old, single-mom, welfare, surplus-food poverty in the housing projects.

The housing projects I grew-up in were a stone's throw (literally) from Harvard Medical School, and a short walk to its teaching hospitals, including Boston Children's Hospital.

We had Medicaid. It covered our health care.

When we had a medical problem we would go to the hospital and we would be treated. It seemed to work.

Medicaid worked. People got sick, they got treated. People got hit by cars or shot by cops, they got treated. People needed inoculations or antibiotics and they got them. It worked. Somehow, America didn't collapse into socialistic Communism, and the economy continued to expand

We have eliminated that program, of course, because our tax dollars have to be funnelled-up to the rich, so they can distribute them downwards via the open market. And now we are fighting over America's medical system.

A medical system that is ranked with technological power-houses like Costa Rica and Slovenia. [See, The World Health Organization's ranking
of the world's health systems.] Yup, the supply-siders tell us that we have the best health care in the world, and we are ranked number thirty-seven.

We do live in a nation, after all, where a sporting event titled the world series is open to only one organization not operated within the United States, so it makes sense that these same people would consider 37 to be the best.

We need to scrap the entire dialog about health care, spend the next few months fixing our tax code and regulatory agencies so the rich are fairly taxed and fairly regulated. Then, around Christmas time, we can talk about health care again.

And let's talk about restoring the post-War Medicaid system that worked perfectly, and provide it to every American who wants it. Most Americans have decent access to health care, and Medicaid will be the safety net that makes a nation civilized.