Health Care Solutions

Here is a fact. The health care law passed by the Obama administration had as stated goal to provide as close to full coverage of the populace as possible. It has failed. Incredibly there are now more people uninsured in this country than were before.

The reason is fairly simple. Our health care system is still employer based. As long as this is the case our system is not fixed. Not even close.

What this means is that as unemployement goes up and in times of economic distress people lose their health insurance.

In other countries that have a single payer health care system this is not the case. If folks lose their job in these countries they still have health care. This is a vital difference.

Another major issue in our health care system , employer based as it is, is it puts our employers at a very large competitive disadvantage. I am currently reading a book called Once Upon a Car by Bill Vlasic. In this book we view the collapse and subsequent rebirth of the American auto industry. What becomes abundantly clear is that the cost of providing health care to both current and what are called legacy employees is killing the industry. If auto workers in Germany, for example, have thier health care provided by the government then the companies have one very large expense to deal with. This puts American companies a a tremendous disadvantage.

The President when a Senator stated that he was for a single payer system. During the campaign he denied that. Then as President in order to try to appease the insurance industry Obama did not advocate for single payer.

Theier is only one solution to the health care issues in this country. It is single payer. The reason this is not done is simple. Money. Profit. As long as profit is part of the health care system our system will never be fixed and will be a drag on the economy in far reaching ways.

The question remains why is The United States, a leading light of democracy, so backward on this issue.