 "Photo: Leonardo Allanis | Valley Star")
Students at Valley College are privileged to have a Student Health Center that provides physicals and various screenings, lab testing, immunization shots, and referral services. More importantly it comes at little or no cost. It would be great for all Americans to have nationalized health care interested in helping people instead of the broken down, misanthropic, juggernaut that we have at present.
The United States National Health Care Act, or H.R. 676, is a bill introduced to the House of Representatives on Aug. 24 and is expected to create a heated debate when the House reconvenes later this month. This bill is the best shot to deliver single payer health care to our country.
This bill would essentially make the current MediCare health program available to all citizens of the U.S. including primary care, necessary prescription drugs, emergency room services, mental health, dental and vision care with a renewed dedication to preventative health care.
While things that are too good to be true usually are, H.R. 676 is no fantasy. The idea is that costs would be offset by the tax revenues generated by U.S. citizens. First, this is something that every tax-paying citizen already does with MediCare taxes. Second, with everyone paying into the system, citizens would be allowed to get more services at a lower cost.
With many republicans crying foul that this idea is communism and that this is an expansion of government, they have forgotten a few things in their well-rehearsed rant. They should consider the fact that they’ve already been paying into MediCare, making them communists already.
This is also not an expansion of government. H.R. 676 would actually streamline existing agencies into a more efficient system that would combine the Indian Health Services and Veteran Affairs programs, eliminating extra bureaucracy, extra paperwork, and insuring VA hospitals like Walter Reed are on par with everyone else.
Additionally, the biggest innovation this bill would introduce is the creation of electronic medical records for everyone. USA Today has reported that as recent as 2003, $1.7 trillion was spent on paperwork alone, which will be eliminated.
Twenty five words into the U.S. Constitution, it says, “Promote the General Welfare.” Not the general rich, not the general richer, or the general richest one percent. If the government can do this and provide us the general welfare we need, citizens will have an easier time securing the “blessings to ourselves and our posterity” instead of worrying about choosing between rent and medication. Give the republicans the Second Amendment, the rest of us want single payer.
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