Once in a blue moon a truth slips from the lips of President Trump.
That rare lunar phenomenon happened one day last week shortly after TrumpCare, so-called, (more like RyanCare) was approved by a slim margin in the U.S. House. Trump was crowing about “his” health-care plan to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull:
“It’s going to be fantastic health care,” Trump said. “I shouldn’t say this to our great gentleman and my friend from Australia because you have better health care than we do.”
Trump’s first statement (fantastic health care) is a lie and/or a delusion.
The second statement (Australia’s better health care) is true.
Trump has told similar truths before – when he praised the health-care systems of Britain and Canada. All three of those countries have universal, single-payer health care. They spend less money on care than we do, patients pay few or no out-of-pocket costs, every person is covered and health outcomes are generally better than those in the United States. A single-payer system is similar to a Medicare-for-All concept in which taxes cover the costs of health care rather than premiums and in which insurance companies no longer wag the dog.
Almost all other civilized countries have single-payer systems, and study after study proves they work – and work very well.
Thanks in large part to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ impassioned speeches, the idea of a single-payer system is catching on with more Americans, including with many hospitals and doctors. That’s because Sanders helped dispel the stupid notion of single-payer as a death-dealing commie bogeyman.
For decades, we Americans have been lied to constantly by the powers that be, and most all too eagerly believed the lies. We were told (we’re still being told) that people in “those” countries “over there” are waiting in lines, getting sicker, doing without, dying, committing suicide and that Canadians are flocking en masse to our country for our “superior” care. Why the barrage of lies? Because health-insurance companies, Big Pharma and other greedy interests keep feeding us lies, wanting to scare us so they can retain control of their indulgence in profits-over-people.
If Trump and Co. are serious about a good plan, with lower costs, lower premiums and universal coverage, they would do well to start exploring a single-payer system. Anything less will prove to be as impossible as putting Humpty-Dumpty together again.
ObamaCare, of course, has its serious problems. But it’s better than nothing – especially for the 24 million Americans who now have health insurance, who didn’t before.
What’s almost funny is the spectacle of Trump and Congress members patting themselves on the back for repealing ObamaCare and trying to replace it with such a piece of legislative garbage. It’s nothing but more snake oil, just as their last legislative effort was, the one that fell flat on its face.
There they stood in the White House Rose Garden – that alternative world with its alternative facts – beaming with beatific smiles as they all pretended to believe their legislative “triumph” will be the greatest thing since cupcakes and just what the doctor ordered. In fact, it’s more like what the executioner ordered. And this (feel free to laugh) comes courtesy of the politicians who excoriated ObamaCare for its “death panels.” What the Rose Garden folks were really grinning about, most likely, is the frosting on the cake – the $620-billion tax break for the wealthy that this wretched excuse for health-care reform contains.
Even many conservatives, like Ohio Gov. John Kasich, are blasting TrumpCare. He said as many as 700,000 people in his state would lose coverage. By 2020, he added, people would be knocked off of Medicaid. Most of them, he said, would never be able to afford premiums of $3,000 and $4,000 or more, and their deductibles would be off the charts.
“They’ll all be living in emergency rooms again,” he said.
All three of Minnesota’s Republican representatives, including Tom Emmer, voted for this mean-spirited piece of crap gussied up, cynically, to sound so kind and caring. Lipstick on a pig.
Beware when politicians proclaim “patient-centered, health-care competition, flexibility, access, returning control to the states.” Those are code words for the “good old days,” when at least 24 million Americans couldn’t afford insurance. As some wit said, “We all have access to Cadillacs, but who can afford one?”
TrumpCare, at least this version of it, amounts to a crazy-quilt way of letting states erode federally guaranteed rights, the ones enshrined in ObamaCare.
We are overdue for a miracle – the miracle of Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate working together either to fix ObamaCare or to come up with a better replacement. Enough snake oil!