The Big DemCon

This web site has much well-deserved criticism of McCain's health care proposal. What seems scarce is a more critical attitude towards the offerings of Clinton and Obama. The best analyses out there appear to indicate that the Clinton plan covers twice as many of the uninsured than Obama's, which costs 80% as much. The cost per uncovered person provided coverage is much higher with Obama's plan. But I think both are very lame plans. These plans try to appease two major players: there are those insured individuals who simply want to keep what they've got, and there is the insurance industry, which of course wants to preserve itself as a profit-making industry. Both of these groups must face the music if we are to have a decent universal health care plan (not universal insurance) that really cuts costs and covers everybody. We need to follow proven models that other countries are already using successfully, like the Canadian or European plans. Any of those are far, far better because of one central commonality: single payer. The rest is at best an exercise in wishful thinking, and at worst, it is a big con.

If we do not embrace a single-payer plan, our health care system will continue to be the worst, or one of the worst, plans of modern industrial nations. Not only will it function poorly, but it will continue to be very expensive, and that will be disastrous. Why not read the writing on the wall? The provision of health care must be separated from the payment. The single-payer principal must be embraced. Obama says that is "not practical". I guess he means that is not a battle he wants to fight. Too bad his audacity of hope does not include courage based on intelligent analysis.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future