33 days until we vote on who will lead us for four years. Each of those days, I will blog about why healthcare is crucial, and who's got it right.
Healthcare needs to be an issue this year. And it's not just about generic drugs, public vs. private, or copays. To lay the groundwork for the next 33 days, some points:
Healthcare is an economic issue. Elizabeth Edwards got it yesterday:
Elizabeth Edwards said during a conference call Tuesday that medical bills often lead to foreclosure, a primary factor in the lagging housing market that's led to the demise of several Wall Street firms. Those without health insurance are often less productive, she said, because they miss work after failing to get treatment. "Reform of our health care system is a very important part of the answers we're going to need to solve our economic woes." (AP)
After the jump, I discuss how it's a national security issue, a criminal justice issue and a moral issue.
Healthcare is a moral issue. John McCain wants to kick 20,000,000 Americans out of their current insurance plans and into inferior ones, and deprive 5,000,000 of insurance altogether. He wants to create a health tax on middle class families - an average of $1,100 by 2013 for a family making $60,000 a year. This is reprehensible by any standard. On the other hand, Senator Obama's plan is aimed at restoring fairness to our healthcare system. And that's not just about dollars and cents. Paul Krugman of the New York Times puts it well:
"(A just healthcare system) will make people just understand once again that government can do things to make the society fairer, safer." (Campaign for America's Future)
Healthcare is a national security issue. In a globalized, interconnected era, we can't afford to let our guard down when it comes to pandemics, or border-crossing diseases, whether they come in livestock or on a commercial airliner.
"Our every-man-for-himself attitude toward health care is a security threat on a par with unsecured ports. In Canada, people go see the doctor if they're sick for more than a day or two. It was this easy access to early treatment, along with the much tighter public health matrix that enables doctors to share information quickly, that allowed the country's health care system to detect the 2003 SARS epidemics...act within hours to stop them before the disease spread any further, and track down and treat exposed people...In the U.S., that same epidemic might easily have gone unnoticed for critical days and weeks......America's underfunded public health system might have taken several days to piece together the whole picture of an epidemic; and perhaps another week (to decide) about how to proceed...By that point, tens of millions could have been infected, leading to a death toll that would make 9/11 and Katrina look like minor statistical blips....Think about superbugs and the ongoing waves of immunological imports from the world's swamps and jungles. Think about terrorists with bioweapons. And then think again about the undeniable fact that every single underinsured American is a gaping hole in the safety net that protects us all from a catastrophic epidemic." (Campaign for America's Future)
Healthcare is a criminal justice issue. The paper quoted below, by the way, is a call to increase funding to SCHIP, which, as I discussed earlier, McCain has voted to gut:
Research shows that effective mental health interventions can successfully turn troubled kids away from crime and save money. Without health coverage, these children are unlikely to get treatment. (FightCrime.org)
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned over the next 33 days as I get specific about why John McCain has healthcare wrong - disastrously wrong - and Barack Obama has it right.