Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Behind election smokescreen: Canada’s elite prepares all-out assault on Medicare

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

Monday, May 2, 2011

Behind election smokescreen: Canada’s elite prepares all-out assault on Medicare

Click here to access article by Louis Girard from World Socialist Web Site.

Even as the population is purportedly determining through the May 2 election the policies Canada’s government will pursue in the years ahead, big business is outlining the real agenda that will be implemented by the political elite.

Chief among its priorities is an assault on what remains of the welfare state and especially the universal public health insurance system, Medicare.

In spite of years of chipping away at funding for the program by the Canadian ruling class, the program remains hugely popular by all except the wealthy.

People and organizations who have campaigned in the US for a single payer universal health care program have often pointed to Canadian Medicare as a low-cost, successful example of such a program. Thus, the Canadian program has been a major thorn in the side of the US insurance industry and their supporters. I have my suspicions that political operatives in the US have put pressure on their Canadian counterparts to destroy their program.