Health Care as a Human Right - Universal Health care would eliminate the expensive insurance industry - Rudi Batzell
Single-payer health care would eliminate the insurance industry and replace it with a single, tax-supported fund that would cover all medical expenses, from medicine, to hospital stays, to MRI scans. In the history of the struggle for health care as a human right, we have reached an important juncture at which real advances may be realized. In many ways, it is remarkable that activists in the United States are still forced to fight for this major reform. National health care programs were first instituted by Otto von Bismarck in imperial Germany in 1883. Faced with the rising power of the German socialist party, Bismarck conceded certain social demands in the hope of co-opting the political power of the left. Following World War II, national health care insurance spread across Europe. Socialist and labor parties rose to power after the war, able to appeal to strong feelings of patriotic collective responsibility.
When former President Bill Clinton proposed a plan including universal coverage in 1992, he had to contend with a potent adversary: the insurance lobby. The Health Insurance Association of America spent 15 million dollars on a broad advertising campaign, insurance companies increased their campaign donations to members of the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committee. In sum, over $100 million was spent to defeat Clinton’s proposals. Their propaganda worked. While universal coverage initially drew 59 percent support from Americans, after a year of relentless attacks and misinformation, support had declined to 44 percent. It is clear that many Americans are again ready for a major change; more than three-quarters believe that the current system based on private employer-based insurance is failing and that the health care system needs to be fundamentally rebuilt.
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