Cost of Care Quotes
Alinsky was one of the first of the modern politicians who realized the growing control over peoples’ lives that the health care was assuming. Getting decent health care at an affordable price was getting more and more difficult for the working class unless provided by an employer, and the poor were already at the mercy of whatever system there was in the area as they could go nowhere else.
For most of the opponents of Obamacare, it was definitely about health care. For a few like Paul, the fact that under Obamacare, it was the fact that it was mandatory for everyone who could afford it to buy health insurance that was unacceptable. The government in a free country in his view should not require citizens to buy a specific product. Obamacare supporters observe that society has an interest in that if someone who refuses to buy health insurance gets seriously ill, our societal mores will require his to be treated and we all have to pay for that treatment. Without the government mandate, a group of people will simply get a free ride, getting health care if they need it, but never contributing their fair share. Paul and many libertarians do not deny the argument or its basis. They simply argue that such a mandate is unacceptable even for a very worthy purposes. Any loss of essential freedom, can be—and often has been—justified be numerous worthy reasons. Slave owners used to justify slavery be all the good it did for society, economic development, culture, etc. Principled libertarians also oppose, the draft, government wiretapping, drug illegality, and many other steps where some freedom is lost – given up for a worthy purpose.
In some areas, the United States has the best performance in the entire world—length of survival rates for breast cancer and some other diseases for example. However, on basic medical services, like infant mortality, we have a poorer record than all the other industrialized countries. Cuba and Costa Rica are better than us in this area and their citizens actually have a longer life expectancy than Americans. Emmanuel makes the argument that the cost differential between US health care and other—even better systems—is so great that we can easily save money and reform our system without rationing medical care or wait in lines for surgery. However, to do so, there must be huge reforms and few in the system want to risk changing anything. It is hard for most Americans to face the fact that other countries offer obvious medical superiority in many areas. For example, in France, if you call their emergency telephone number for a medical emergency a doctor answers the phone, not an operator with only modest medical knowledge. When a French ambulance is dispatched, it does not have emergency medical technicians only, but there is a doctor and a nurse in the ambulance. And the ambulance itself is equipped to do emergency surgery of other critical treatment if time is critical.
He was prophetic. It was the start of the Canadian health system as we know it today. precursor of the New Democratic Party.
