| Chapter Thirty of Pax Americana: The Military Industrial Complex and the War On Terror by Danny Quintana |
| Defense Spending Alternative: National Health Insurance to Save Jobs "The time has arrived to help millions of Americans living without a full measure of opportunity to acheive and enjoy good health and [to have] protection against the economic effects of sickness." President Harry S. Truman 1945 |
According to the Census Bureau, the number of uninsured Americans stood at a record 46.6 million in 2005, with 15.9 percent of Americans
lacking health coverage. “The number of uninsured Americans reached an all-time high in 2005,” said Robert Greenstein, executive director
of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It is sobering that 5.4 million more people lacked health insurance in 2005 than in the
recession year of 2001, primarily because of the erosion of employer-based insurance.”1.
Is it the duty of employers to provide health coverage for their workers? No, it is not. Business should not be saddled with providing health
care for workers. The purpose of a business enterprise is to provide a return on investment to the owners. Investors do not create a business
to provide insurance benefits for employees. It is a added cost to investors, not a benefit that increases the return on investment. In fact, it is
a net drag on earnings and the competitive position of business.
In more civilized industrialized countries, government provides health coverage for the public. By providing health coverage, the business
leaders are free to use their assets to better compete on a global scale. Small employers often cannot afford health coverage for their
employees. The effect of this lack of insurance is workers who are not covered are cast into working poverty or worse. A health care crisis
often means bankruptcy.
lacking health coverage. “The number of uninsured Americans reached an all-time high in 2005,” said Robert Greenstein, executive director
of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It is sobering that 5.4 million more people lacked health insurance in 2005 than in the
recession year of 2001, primarily because of the erosion of employer-based insurance.”1.
Is it the duty of employers to provide health coverage for their workers? No, it is not. Business should not be saddled with providing health
care for workers. The purpose of a business enterprise is to provide a return on investment to the owners. Investors do not create a business
to provide insurance benefits for employees. It is a added cost to investors, not a benefit that increases the return on investment. In fact, it is
a net drag on earnings and the competitive position of business.
In more civilized industrialized countries, government provides health coverage for the public. By providing health coverage, the business
leaders are free to use their assets to better compete on a global scale. Small employers often cannot afford health coverage for their
employees. The effect of this lack of insurance is workers who are not covered are cast into working poverty or worse. A health care crisis
often means bankruptcy.
 | |  | |  |
In the 1960s, more than 80 percent of US workers had health insurance through their employers. Today, in the face of skyrocketing
premiums, that's down to 62 percent according to the Christian Science Monitor. 2 But should employers be saddled with this cost?
There is no greater good fortune that can be bestowed on a human being than to have great physical and mental health. Good health is truly
good fortune. But what would happen if Americans had universal health coverage like the citizens of other countries? Would our health
improve? What is the state of American health today, without universal coverage?
If you go into any grocery store in the United States or restaurant or coffee shop, you will see grotesquely overweight men and women.
Approximately 56% of Americans are overweight and almost 40 million are obese. With the poor diet comes increased health care costs from
heart disease and diabetes. According to Health and Human Services, Diabetes alone accounts for $100 billion in health care spending each
year. With millions more that abuse alcohol and legal and illegal drugs, add an aging population and we are headed for a health care crisis of
monumental proportions. It is the perfect storm.
There are solutions. By requiring corporate America to provide a healthy diet rather then the fat saturated food that is legal, we will lower the
weight of Americans. Our current junk food diet is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, legally. A second part of this solution
is to have all Americans with some type of minimum coverage. If we can afford to spend $500 billion on an invasion of Iraq, over $100 billion
on a questionable missile defense system, over $200 billion of the F22 fighter program and billions more on corporate subsidies for
agriculture, why can’t we afford to provide health care coverage to all Americans? The reasons lie in politics not in the practical realities of
necessity.
We would be better off as a nation if our tax dollars paid for health care coverage for all citizens. Then workers would not be faced with the
choice of leaving a small employer they enjoyed because they could not afford to be without health insurance. And employers would be
competing on a level playing field. Not being saddled with insurance costs, employers could offer better pay.
The current system is fundamentally flawed. America has the most expensive health care system on earth. Our drug costs are so high that
Canadian and Mexican border towns have developed cottage industries of providing medicines to their neighboring giant. There is no way a
worker making $12,000.00 can afford insurance premiums of $2,500.00 per year. And given the competitive nature of the international
economy, even the nation’s largest employer, Wal-Mart makes coverage an optional cost of employment. But what this does is it shifts the
cost of health care coverage to the taxpayers who ultimately pay for uninsured workers anyway. Because if a worker has a major health care
cost and has to file bankruptcy, the taxpayer picks up the tab with higher costs. Health care providers merely raise their prices to absorb the
losses from bankruptcy. We are not a healthy society.
There are solutions. By requiring corporate America to provide a healthy diet rather then the fat saturated food that is legal, we will lower the
weight of Americans. Our current junk food diet is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, legally. A second part of this solution
is to have all Americans with some type of minimum coverage. If we can afford to spend $500 billion on an invasion of Iraq, over $100 billion
on a questionable missile defense system, over $200 billion of the F22 fighter program and billions more on corporate subsidies for
agriculture, why can’t we afford to provide health care coverage to all Americans? The reasons lie in politics not in the practical realities of
necessity. With one half of the public having given up completely on the political system, politicians know that the uninsured and uninsurable
will not be voting anyway. Therefore there is no reason to provide them with any of the benefits other industrialized countries’ citizens and our
wealthy members of our own society take for granted.
What the candidates who are offering their services can do to be elected is register the one half of the voters who have given up. And give
people hope. If a worker knows he or she will have health care coverage no matter what their income, it will take a great deal of mental
pressure off of them. Financial stress for many people is very real and very difficult. If their employers cannot afford to pay them more money,
even if they wanted to, the workers would at least know that health care is a right, not a privilege.
The present wasteful system that encourages lying and harms millions cannot continue. As a society, we cannot afford not to have national
health insurance for all Americans. It is a cost that business cannot and should not have to absorb while trying to compete with countries that
pay their workers substantially lower wages. If the global competition is limited to the quality of our work, Americans will win. But if we saddle
business with health care costs and wages, our workers will lose.
Our housing costs are much higher then Mexico, China, India and the various other export platforms our workers are competing with in our
present “free trade” system. If business is asked to carry health insurance and competitive wages, all of us will lose. In the end even the
greediest of medical providers and insurers have to acknowledge that having the costliest medical system in the world is not in the nation’s
best interest.
The sheer weight of the system will cause it to collapse. The market will force a solution. Illegal medical services will rise to fill the gap of
unmet medical demand and unaffordable supply.
Illegal abortion clinics existed prior to the law bringing common sense to this issue. Illegal drugs from other countries and illegal medical
services from unlicensed doctors and health care providers will enter the market and fill the void created by a failure of politics. The best
solution and the least expensive for business and workers is to simply have national health insurance for all Americans as a matter of right.
Unlike the war on Iraq, where a few soldiers die each day, our present system is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. The
better solution is to regulate diet and provide everyone with medical coverage. We cannot solve the intractable problems that exist in the
Middle East. These problems have their roots in antiquity and no president will have a realistic solution. But whoever is elected can solve our
health care crisis where we have a unhealthy population and an expensive health care system that leaves millions without any coverage
of any kind. This problem can be solved and the next president should make this a national priority
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. "The Number of Uninsured is at an all time high", Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, August 29, 2006 online at:
www.cbpp.org/8-29-06health.htm
2. "Even biggest firms now cut health insurance" by Alexander Marks, October 28, 2003, Christian Science
Monitor, online at:www.csmonitor.com/2003/1028/p01s02-usec.html
premiums, that's down to 62 percent according to the Christian Science Monitor. 2 But should employers be saddled with this cost?
There is no greater good fortune that can be bestowed on a human being than to have great physical and mental health. Good health is truly
good fortune. But what would happen if Americans had universal health coverage like the citizens of other countries? Would our health
improve? What is the state of American health today, without universal coverage?
If you go into any grocery store in the United States or restaurant or coffee shop, you will see grotesquely overweight men and women.
Approximately 56% of Americans are overweight and almost 40 million are obese. With the poor diet comes increased health care costs from
heart disease and diabetes. According to Health and Human Services, Diabetes alone accounts for $100 billion in health care spending each
year. With millions more that abuse alcohol and legal and illegal drugs, add an aging population and we are headed for a health care crisis of
monumental proportions. It is the perfect storm.
There are solutions. By requiring corporate America to provide a healthy diet rather then the fat saturated food that is legal, we will lower the
weight of Americans. Our current junk food diet is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, legally. A second part of this solution
is to have all Americans with some type of minimum coverage. If we can afford to spend $500 billion on an invasion of Iraq, over $100 billion
on a questionable missile defense system, over $200 billion of the F22 fighter program and billions more on corporate subsidies for
agriculture, why can’t we afford to provide health care coverage to all Americans? The reasons lie in politics not in the practical realities of
necessity.
We would be better off as a nation if our tax dollars paid for health care coverage for all citizens. Then workers would not be faced with the
choice of leaving a small employer they enjoyed because they could not afford to be without health insurance. And employers would be
competing on a level playing field. Not being saddled with insurance costs, employers could offer better pay.
The current system is fundamentally flawed. America has the most expensive health care system on earth. Our drug costs are so high that
Canadian and Mexican border towns have developed cottage industries of providing medicines to their neighboring giant. There is no way a
worker making $12,000.00 can afford insurance premiums of $2,500.00 per year. And given the competitive nature of the international
economy, even the nation’s largest employer, Wal-Mart makes coverage an optional cost of employment. But what this does is it shifts the
cost of health care coverage to the taxpayers who ultimately pay for uninsured workers anyway. Because if a worker has a major health care
cost and has to file bankruptcy, the taxpayer picks up the tab with higher costs. Health care providers merely raise their prices to absorb the
losses from bankruptcy. We are not a healthy society.
There are solutions. By requiring corporate America to provide a healthy diet rather then the fat saturated food that is legal, we will lower the
weight of Americans. Our current junk food diet is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, legally. A second part of this solution
is to have all Americans with some type of minimum coverage. If we can afford to spend $500 billion on an invasion of Iraq, over $100 billion
on a questionable missile defense system, over $200 billion of the F22 fighter program and billions more on corporate subsidies for
agriculture, why can’t we afford to provide health care coverage to all Americans? The reasons lie in politics not in the practical realities of
necessity. With one half of the public having given up completely on the political system, politicians know that the uninsured and uninsurable
will not be voting anyway. Therefore there is no reason to provide them with any of the benefits other industrialized countries’ citizens and our
wealthy members of our own society take for granted.
What the candidates who are offering their services can do to be elected is register the one half of the voters who have given up. And give
people hope. If a worker knows he or she will have health care coverage no matter what their income, it will take a great deal of mental
pressure off of them. Financial stress for many people is very real and very difficult. If their employers cannot afford to pay them more money,
even if they wanted to, the workers would at least know that health care is a right, not a privilege.
The present wasteful system that encourages lying and harms millions cannot continue. As a society, we cannot afford not to have national
health insurance for all Americans. It is a cost that business cannot and should not have to absorb while trying to compete with countries that
pay their workers substantially lower wages. If the global competition is limited to the quality of our work, Americans will win. But if we saddle
business with health care costs and wages, our workers will lose.
Our housing costs are much higher then Mexico, China, India and the various other export platforms our workers are competing with in our
present “free trade” system. If business is asked to carry health insurance and competitive wages, all of us will lose. In the end even the
greediest of medical providers and insurers have to acknowledge that having the costliest medical system in the world is not in the nation’s
best interest.
The sheer weight of the system will cause it to collapse. The market will force a solution. Illegal medical services will rise to fill the gap of
unmet medical demand and unaffordable supply.
Illegal abortion clinics existed prior to the law bringing common sense to this issue. Illegal drugs from other countries and illegal medical
services from unlicensed doctors and health care providers will enter the market and fill the void created by a failure of politics. The best
solution and the least expensive for business and workers is to simply have national health insurance for all Americans as a matter of right.
Unlike the war on Iraq, where a few soldiers die each day, our present system is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. The
better solution is to regulate diet and provide everyone with medical coverage. We cannot solve the intractable problems that exist in the
Middle East. These problems have their roots in antiquity and no president will have a realistic solution. But whoever is elected can solve our
health care crisis where we have a unhealthy population and an expensive health care system that leaves millions without any coverage
of any kind. This problem can be solved and the next president should make this a national priority
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. "The Number of Uninsured is at an all time high", Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, August 29, 2006 online at:
www.cbpp.org/8-29-06health.htm
2. "Even biggest firms now cut health insurance" by Alexander Marks, October 28, 2003, Christian Science
Monitor, online at:www.csmonitor.com/2003/1028/p01s02-usec.html