A few unrelated (or maybe related) facts:
- According to Article 25 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted over 60 years ago (and which the U.S., as part of the General Assembly, approved):
•(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
- According to wikipedia
The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.
Argentina[citation needed], Brazil (see below), Canada (see below), Chile[citation needed], Costa Rica[citation needed], Cuba, Mexico (see below), Panama[citation needed], Peru (see below), Uruguay[citation needed]], and Venezuela[citation needed] all have public universal health care provided. . . .
Brunei, China,[46] Hong Kong SAR, India[citation needed], Kuwait[citation needed], Qatar[citation needed], UAE[citation needed], Saudi Arabia[citation needed], Israel,[47] Japan, Malaysia[citation needed], South Korea, Seychelles[citation needed], Sri Lanka,[48] Taiwan,[49], Pakistan[citation needed] and Thailand[citation needed] have universal health care . . . .
Virtually all of Europe has publicly sponsored and regulated health care. . . . Countries with universal health care include Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,[67] Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine[68] and the United Kingdom.[69]
. . .
Universal health care is implemented in all but one of the wealthy, industrialized countries, with the exception being the United States.[1] It is also provided in many developing countries and is the trend worldwide. . . .
Current estimates put U.S. health care spending at more than 15% of GDP, a greater portion than in any other United Nations member state except for the Marshall Islands.[23]
- The book
Critical Condition, by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, details in horrific detail the agony suffered by America's tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured, who are subject to financial devastation when they get sick. This is something Americans have to contend with, but not people in civilized countries with universal health care.
- The book One Nation, Uninsured, by Jill Quadagno, details the history of one defeat after another for those who have sought to implement universal health insurance in the U.S. We were defeated in the 1910s, the 1930s, the 1940s, the 1970s, and the 1990s. One of the reasons why reform efforts died in Congress, particularly in the first seven decades of the 20th century, was because powerful conservative Southern Democrats controlled the key Congressional committees. These Southerners feared that national health programs would force Southern hospitals to stop their segregated practice, so (to our nation's everlasting shame) they bottled up reform efforts.
- One of the leaders of the so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats, who have bottled up health care reform in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is Mike Ross of Arkansas. Ross has been a sort of spokesperson for the Blue Dogs, and yesterday, after meeting with the President, it was reported that the Blue Dogs "had great concern on cost of the legislation . . . . 'There’s about 10 issues that we’re concerned with. Obviously cost cutting is first on that list.'"
- According to the CBO, which is of course by no means infallible, the House bill (H.R. 3200) will cause a net increase to the federal budget deficit of $239 billion for the ten year period from 2010-2019. Interestingly, for the first half-decade of that period (2010-2014), CBO estimates the bill will actually reduce the deficit by a cumulative $44 billion. At the same time, CBO estimates that the number of nonelderly uninsured (not counting illegal immigrants) would be reduced from the current 46 million to 9 million.
- By this point in his presidency (that is, less than 6 months in) George W. Bush had already signed into law the so-called Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, EGTRRA significantly reduced federal income taxes for the highest tax brackets, cut capital gains and dividend taxes, and drastically cut the federal estate and generation skipping transfer taxes (in fact, those taxes are scheduled to be eliminated completely next year under EGTRRA). At the time of its enactment, EGTRRA was estimated to reduce federal tax revenues (and thus increase the budget deficit) by $1.35 trillion over the first ten years (we are now in the beginning of the ninth year). The top 1% of earners (with income of $373,000 and above) reaped 36.7% of the benefits of EGTRRA, though they had paid only 25.9% of federal taxes before the bill was enacted. They received by far the largest percentage increase of after-tax income of any group of taxpayers.
- Guess how Mike Ross, the Blue Dog who is so concerned about deficits and costs, voted on EGTRRA? You got it -- he voted aye. Aye for adding $1.35 trillion to the deficit over ten years -- not counting the additional interest that would be added to paying down the debt -- largely to the benefit of the very wealthiest.
- Of the other other six Blue Dogs who are holding up the bill in energy and commerce, three were in Congress in 2001. And two of those three voted for it: Bart Gordon (D-TN) and Jim Matheson (D-UT). Baron Hill (D-IN), to his credit, voted against EGTRRA.
- The utter hypocrisy of Ross, Gordon, and Matheson shows that the deficit, or cost, is not even remotely a legitimate issue with H.R. 3200. As anyone could predict at the time, EGTRRA did nothing to help to average American. It added greatly to the deficit (making health care and other reforms that much more difficult to accomplish now) and did not generate helpful economic growth. The median household income in the United States, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2006 than it was in 2000 and 2001 (before EGTRRA took effect) -- and that was before the economic catastrophe of the last two years.
- Here is the reality -- when the federal government wants to add trillions to the deficit in a destructive, harmful giveaway to the wealthy, the Blue Dogs are all for it. When the government wants to add a fraction of that amount to the deficit for a highly meritorious purpose -- to bring health coverage to the tens of millions of Americans who are un- or under-insured, who are vulnerable to bankruptcy from a single major illness or injury -- the Blue Dogs fight it tooth and nail. Is that perhaps because the health care bill would primarily benefit the poor and disenfranchised, who don't have the big bucks for campaign contributions (unlike the wealthy beneficiaries of EGTRRA)? Decide for yourself.
If the United States cannot do what all those countries I listed above have done -- despite having a committed, popular President who is pushing hard for it, and strong majorities of the supposedly progressive party in both houses of Congress -- then Jim DeMint will be right. Or at least half right. It will not be Obama's Waterloo. It will be America's Waterloo.