We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Why This Isn’t Time For Public Option Or Medicare For Some

Click here to access article by Margaret Flowers from Health Over Profit.

Flowers reports that some liberal politicians favor public option insurance and Medicare for some, and why such insurance plans are really only beneficial to insurance companies. 

Well, we are a capitalist country, and capitalist rule promotes the profit of corporations, and regarding this issue, private insurance corporations. (Duh!) And the US-led Empire must prioritize military expenditures (also to private corporations) to support the Empire's influence in the world in order to secure for their corporations resources, markets, cheap labor (for example, see this), and the security of the US dollar which most nations need to buy to do international business. If the yuan or ruble or some other currency replaces the US dollar, then our ruling capitalist masters are in deep-do-do. Then their economy might experience such enormous problems that they would have difficulty maintaining their rule and their system.

Hence, it follows that we will only have adequate health care (and other such good things as peace, income security, happiness, a biosphere that can support human life, etc) if or when we, the people, replace the system of capitalism with a system that serves all of the people and is controlled by all of the people instead of a tiny class of people.