Is the defeat of Obamacare the best chance for Universal HC in the US?

[~Spectre]

So, the Federal government appears to have gotten its ass kicked in the Supreme court over the last few days, and liberals are crying, conservatives are cheering, but what does this actually mean?

I dare say, it's a chance to get universal health care back on the table. It may sound counter-intuitive at first, but allow me to make the argument:

First, recognize that the status quo is unsustainable. Health care is unpopular as fuck in this country, despite the propaganda by the industry. Now, people are more aware of what terms like "pre-existing condition" imply. It's one of the leading (if not leading) causes of bankruptcy, which in turn has massively pernicious effects on entire communities. Doctors (which do have some political clout) hate the status quo, because insurance companies tend to shut down tests that the doctors could otherwise charge on. Industrial capitalists hate the status quo, because their healthcare costs make them less competitive with foreign labor (whose governments pay the cost of health care). Even the United States government itself is spending tons of money on costs that could soon grow unmanageable without major reform.

Second, if Obamacare falls, then Single Payer healthcare might be the only constitutional alternative. That's the implication of the arguments being made by the conservative challengers to the act, and they might actually be correct. The governmental power being claimed by the administration is actually pretty extreme, but a standard that strikes it down could likewise be pretty strong in how it shuts down all these weird right wing kickback schemes that pass for insurance reform.

People are already starting to observe that the only legal way left to do this sort of thing would be through a single payer universal health care system.


With Obamacare defeated (and thus the "compromise" defeated), people will be radicalized on the healthcare issue. They won't want to accept "defeat", and now they'll see that these right wing corporate schemes are useless when it comes to getting this done.

Thoughts?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't know how Michael Lind and all the "Radical Center" folks, with their emphasis on moving away from employer-provided insurance, compares:

http://my.firedoglake.com/themediaconsortium/tag/michael-lind/

It's still within the framework of private health insurance, I think. Nonetheless, their emphasized critique on employer-provided stuff ("all benefits should be detached from employers and follow individuals through their lives") is worth looking over the usual arguments.

[Drosophila]

The fact that this even needs to be voted on is insane.

[Geiseric]

Well the same logic goes for the "people are poor as shit, so they're more angry and will want to rise up!" arguement. When there are defeats in the class struggle, it often will demoralize alot of people. However since it's a defeat for the Liberals, I do suppose that it will have an effect of radicalising the 40 million people without healthcare, and the youth who are fucked as of this moment.

[~Spectre]

Well the same logic goes for the "people are poor as shit, so they're more angry and will want to rise up!" arguement. When there are defeats in the class struggle, it often will demoralize alot of people. However since it's a defeat for the Liberals, I do suppose that it will have an effect of radicalising the 40 million people without healthcare, and the youth who are fucked as of this moment.

Actually, my argument is kinda the opposite of that. It's that this time, the powerful interests of this country will be threatened with insolvency. They've also boxed themselves into a corner by leaving only one constitutional option - a single payer system.

[Lilith]

I am not sure how anyone can think that universal healthcare is even a remote possibility with the current political landscape in the US. There is not a snowflake chance in hell.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

With the risk of sounding "reformist", it would really suck to be someone with a pre-existing condition up until single payer is instituted without the rules in that bill.

[~Spectre]

With the risk of sounding "reformist", it would really suck to be someone with a pre-existing condition up until single payer is instituted without the rules in that bill.

If I recall correctly, there's still some ways for insurance companies to deny coverage, only they'd have to pay some sort of fee. I don't recall the fee being particularly high, though perhaps someone else can clarify. This act is tough to search through.

[Rusty Shackleford]

i dont really think it will effect it either way. my guess is it will be declared unconstitutional. but its not like i give a fuck. the whole program was deisnged around making people buy insurance from insurance companies or fining them. so either way, the money goes to some assholes, or it goes to some other assholes.

[RebelDog]

Healthcare in the US is a scandal. A system rationed by wealth, highly inefficient and delivering poor outcomes. Here in the UK right now we have some of your US companies 'advising' the government on NHS 'reform'. So we too can look forward to some US style healthcare in the years to come. I feel ill just thinking about it.

[Left Leanings]

A country as wealthy as America, could have a bashing NHS-style system, if there was just the political will at the top, to introduce it.

I remember seeing a documentary or news item on this issue years ago, and a woman was holding a sign up declaring "Socialized medicine makes me sick". I thought, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Obama did promise he would introduce reforms, that would allegedly extend healthcare to peeps currently uncovered and catered for. Yet I saw a documentary on British TV a few weeks back, in which some American medical preofessionals had volunteered to see patients free of charge.

There were massive queues waiting to be seen. And one guy who was given a diagnosis, was told he was very ill and needed hospital treatment. But he couldn't afford to go to the hospital and pay the bill, which would have run into thousands.

Fat lot of good getting a diagnosis, without getting treatment and hopefully a healthy prognosis yeah, despite the best intentions of the professionals who offered their services up gratis.

Keep fighting and agitating for a comprehensive system of healthcare, that covers all, and is free at the point of use.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Universal healthcare will never exist in the good ol' U.S. of A. I said this years ago. The insurance and financial interests tied up in the industry are simply too strong.

With tens of millions of uninsured people, years of clamoring, etc., the "very best" that was delivered was a system that forced people to purchase insurance. This was enacted to appease the masses without impeding on the "rights" of the insurance and financial giants. But because this required a small amount of regulation of the insurance market, even it was too much to handle. And so a full torrent was unleashed: Beware the danger!! Obama, Obamacare, socialism, fascism, Oh My! What you're now seeing are the results of this years-long propaganda campaign that is itself a result of a sort of "financier's rebellion."

Add to this the inability of capitalism to afford any increase in the "social net" (look around the world; with the falling rate of profit and world crisis of capitalism it's austerity and attacks on the working class universally -- and "reformism supposes a reformable capitalism") and you have the perfect storm.

There is a better chance of the NHS being dismantled in the UK than there is of something like the NHS being constructed in the U.S.

Before you ever see anything approaching genuine "universal healthcare" in this country you will see a major shake up that results in "this country" no longer existing as such. Because in the current conditions, it just ain't happening. Yet another reason revolutionary is a necessity.

[Bostana]

Well free Healthcare is good,
but the way Obama is going at it is wrong i.e. Giving the Government your bank number and allowing them to charge you on surgery

[DaringMehring]

The trade-off of this legislation was

Everyone is forced to buy insurance (gift to insurance companies)

Government assistance to help people buy it who can't (helps some people, gift to insurance companies)

Some weak measures to keep premiums down (minor hurt to insurance companies)

Removing some of the most ugly parts of the system, like pre-existing condition (minor hurt to insurance companies)

Overall,
the health insurance companies get a fat payout.
the consumer gets protected against some of the worst stuff that happens (no money to buy it, denied on pre existing)

in short, the system gets made stronger. Insurance companies get stronger, some of the most obvious reasons to oppose them get removed. A true liberal-democratic project.

The only good thing about it, was that it would establish the idea that everyone should have health care. The super wishful thinkers then argue, that when the system craps out, people will find some other, better way to execute that agreed-on ideal.

[MarxSchmarx]

Those who say they don't care whether "Obamacare" gets scrapped need to consider the alternative - if the pre2009 situation continues, medical bills will continue to be the dominant cause of personal bankrupcies, insurance companies will have even more wealth and control over providers, employers will have even greater leverage over their workers, and the costs for what public health provisions there are in the USA will continue to skyrocket to teh point where they will become unaffordable. Honestly, saying you don't care about the fate of Obamacare is just juvenile bravado.

Daring Mehring provides an excellent summary of the situation - the system gets stronger, yes, but the balance also shifts slightly towards "everyday people" compared to the status quo.

Nor am I as pessimistic as NHIA on this issue - actually, I am very cautiously optimistic, at least as it concerns the United States. As the old guard in America that is characterized by deep racial resentment, prejudice, and early evening TV news hysteria begins to die off, and as the more secular, racially diverse, socially liberal and economically stymied youth generation comes of age, there is a potential for a shift in the US towards reformism that hasn't been seen in over three generations taking root. Already, among the youth in jsut about every industrialized country including America, there is an enormous receptivity to radicalism that we haven't seen since the 60s.

But in the medium term, the defeat of Obamacare will certainly not result in American universal health care for a long time, and will set it back likely even a decade or two.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Reform isn't a result of political will alone. It's not all about the ideas floating around in people's heads, whether those people are young or old, at the top or at the bottom. And indeed those ideas themselves are a reflection of what's actually going on.

The welfare state came out of specific conditions (post-war economic boom, need to "outshine" the "Socialist Bloc," attempts to hold off genuine possibilities of communist revolution, etc.). Those days are over.

The rate of profit has fallen to crisis levels, and capital is racing to find it's way back to something acceptable -- rolling over people and places in the process. This will continue, no matter how "radical" the "youth." Greece has been in flames for years, yet austerity marches on.

It will take a revolution to prevent a slide into utter barbarity. That's not pessimism. It's reality.

It's the reformists that tell us to put off such lofty goals and work on what's attainable. And that's why they are so criminal.

[MarxSchmarx]

Reform isn't a result of political will alone. It's not all about the ideas floating around in people's heads, whether those people are young or old, at the top or at the bottom. And indeed those ideas themselves are a reflection of what's actually going on.

The welfare state came out of specific conditions (post-war economic boom, need to "outshine" the "Socialist Bloc," attempts to hold off genuine possibilities of communist revolution, etc.). Those days are over.

The rate of profit has fallen to crisis levels, and capital is racing to find it's way back to something acceptable -- rolling over people and places in the process. This will continue, no matter how "radical" the "youth." Greece has been in flames for years, yet austerity marches on.


Well, like I said, there is a potential and receptivity - to a great extent, it is incumbent upon the left to seize these opportunities.

Aside from the strawman argument that "reform is a result of political will alone", and even if one were to accept a rather crude economic determinism (in which case it would be no more obvious that capitalism could be readily abolished before a major world wide catastrophe anyway), I disagree with your analysis that the "specific conditions" that allowed the welfare state, are "over" for the major capitalist economies. Yes the "socialist bloc" is no more, but it was really sustained economic growth that made the welfare state possible. An example of this is Saudi Arabia, which never had a serious need to portray itself as "better than the socialist bloc" but was able to build a welfare state on the basis of its oil wealth.

What is striking is that this economic growth continues in the capitalist center like the United States and Germany despite considerable adversity. And this is hardly surprising. Capital finds a way to make money way before it needs to repress the pesky solicitations of reformists.

The question then becomes how this growth should be distributed. Political pressure, and the supposed "ideas floating around in peoples head" can force some degree of concessions - indeed, if this weren't the case no Democrat/Labor/Social Democrat will ever be elected in any industrialized democracy - and yet these reformists still manage to win every other election.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well, like I said, there is a potential and receptivity - to a great extent, it is incumbent upon the left to seize these opportunities.

Comrade, I too stated my opposition to Obamacare above. Even the Radical Center's solution is more progressive.


Aside from the strawman argument that "reform is a result of political will alone", and even if one were to accept a rather crude economic determinism (in which case it would be no more obvious that capitalism could be readily abolished before a major world wide catastrophe anyway)

NHIA needs to read more basic political science here. Economic determinism alone cannot lead to pro-labour policies. Dynamic materialism has a political component.

Besides, I could easily argue that the economic conditions are all set anyways. Capitalism has developed the "industrial" and broader productive forces enough for both progressive reform and "socialist revolution." All that is lacking is Political Will.

[MarxSchmarx]

Besides, I could easily argue that the economic conditions are all set anyways. Capitalism has developed the "industrial" and broader productive forces enough for both progressive reform and "socialist revolution." All that is lacking is Political Will.

Political will, being broadly conceived, to also include the systemic fashion by which capital deprives the working class of its reflexive outlook. The very economic conditions that lay the groundwork for reformism and socialism rely on methodically inducing the acquiescence of large segments of the working class. It is therefore important to place political will in a materialist framework, as amplifying, articulating, and thereby making concrete the class struggle.

[TrotskistMarx]

Hi, indeed but this is why Marxism analysis of the problem of health care is very important. Because we should realize that in America there is a class that prevents changes toward socialism, toward free doctor's appointments and free university degrees. And that class is the middle class. I think that one of the main reasons of why socialism ideology is stronger in Venezuela than in USA is because in that country the majority of people where poor. Not in USA, the USA still has a lower middle class and a middle class that are strong. Specially the lower middle class, that hates to be branded as a lower class. So they always vote for pro-war politicians, pro-bankers, pro-corporations politicians.

I think USA has to wait a couple of more years in order for poverty levels to rise so that the masses can support a socialist labor party as an option for the traditional corporate parties Democrats and Republicans


.



A country as wealthy as America, could have a bashing NHS-style system, if there was just the political will at the top, to introduce it.

I remember seeing a documentary or news item on this issue years ago, and a woman was holding a sign up declaring "Socialized medicine makes me sick". I thought, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Obama did promise he would introduce reforms, that would allegedly extend healthcare to peeps currently uncovered and catered for. Yet I saw a documentary on British TV a few weeks back, in which some American medical preofessionals had volunteered to see patients free of charge.

There were massive queues waiting to be seen. And one guy who was given a diagnosis, was told he was very ill and needed hospital treatment. But he couldn't afford to go to the hospital and pay the bill, which would have run into thousands.

Fat lot of good getting a diagnosis, without getting treatment and hopefully a healthy prognosis yeah, despite the best intentions of the professionals who offered their services up gratis.

Keep fighting and agitating for a comprehensive system of healthcare, that covers all, and is free at the point of use.