2008 and Healthcare

I think it's a safe bet at this point that healthcare will be the top domestic issue/concern of the 2008 campaign. The Democratic candidates more specifically are focusing on this (John Edwards' proposal is being thoroughly dissected). As of now the Republican candidates are too busy fumbling over the social issues (gay marriage, abortion) that their base is obsessed with. But they'll have to discuss actual policies eventually, right?

I guess the big issue for me is whether we are heading towards a universal healthcare system... or instead some muddled 'compromise' that will act as a bandaid to a shotgun wound. The biggest obstacle to getting a universal system is the Republican base, which still sadly has a strong hold on their party. To the right-wing in this country, anything left of Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman is full-on socialism. Bring up 'universal healthcare' during the campaign and the GOP will try and have voters picturing a hammer and sickle. The Democrats' mission then is to not only ignore this noise (not something they've always done well) and get people to focus on their actual problems and priorities and not fictionalized political boogeymen.

A recent encouraging sign, noted by many, was the proposal by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last month for "a system of universal health insurance" for his state. It's a start for an important dialogue on the issue.

It was this story, though, that I read yesterday that showed me just how big this issue has gotten. Walmart customers/employees are seen, stereotypically of course, as typifying middle America. So if that company-- not exactly known as the most conscientious employer around-- is starting to address healthcare concerns, you know the issue has hit the big time. Still, they didn't exactly hit it out of the park right away-

Executives from Wal-Mart and three other large U.S. employers on Wednesday joined union leaders in calling for "quality, affordable" health care for every American by 2012...

...The partnership of business and union leaders laid out four main goals, including universal health care coverage for all Americans and boosting the value of every U.S. dollar spent on health care. The business and union leaders' coalition, dubbed "Better Health Care Together," pledged to convene a national summit by the end of May to recruit others from the private sector, labor, government and nonprofits...

Still the second paragraph notes that-

However, they did not propose any specific policies to achieve this goal, or commit to spending any extra money in the near-term to provide health coverage to more workers.

Ummm, yea, you might want to get on that, folks.

This says it all-

"2012 is a still long way away. What about now?" said Dana Rezaie, a widow with three children who works nights stocking shelves at a Wal-Mart store in Fridley, Minn.

And on that note, Tim F. at Balloon Juice took a look at the state of healthcare yesterday-

Surprisingly, many people still don’t know that America is the only country in the developed world without universal government-supported healthcare. We alone allow entire classes of citizens to simply fall through the cracks, for whom waiting for surgery is a non-issue and a single bad turn can wipe out the life savings, eat the house and leave you bankrupt. An astonishing number of Americans either cannot afford coverage or due to actuarial decisions by the insurance biz cannot find it at any cost.

I bet that most Americans would be genuinely surprised to learn stuff like this. We just assume this is how it is and how it always will be. It is not this way this way in the rest of the industrialized world. Yes, every nation's system is different, but the fundamentals are the same. You get sick, you get taken care of. Period.

Some of the news development I mentioned in this post are very encouraging along the lines that Tim says in his post. As he also says, Democrats need to fight for this issue fearlessly. If the GOP wants to fight for the status quo or the big business interests opposed to universal coverage, let them pay for it at the ballot box.