Single Payer Health Care Must Be Put Back On The Table

Good morning all. I’m sure many of you have heard about the deplorable decision of House Republicans Thursday. Yesterday, Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to pass the American Health Care Act. This is the first steps that they are taking to completely repeal the Affordable Care Act. The bill has to go through the Senate, but at this point there is very little reason to believe that they will vote differently there. Which leads to the difficult question of what should happen now. To that, I have this to say.

I don’t say this lightly, but it is becoming more obvious by the day that an electoral solution to these matters is not possible. This is a broad attack on the human rights of people in this country, and will amount to a death sentence to many. We have heard talk of death panels since 2009, but this decision yesterday was the step towards the real thing. Waiting to see if the Democrats can “get it together” and retake the House in 2018 just doesn’t look like a viable option. We’re way past that now.  This level of reaction, merits a response that breaks away from the controlled opposition of the DNC “ResistanceTM”, and necessitates us to push past the Affordable Care Act, and struggle directly for single-payer health care. For those that may be wondering where the Democratic Party stands on this, an article in yesterday’s Observer notes that the Dems will NOT add single payer to their platform. So much for “The Resistance”.. they have already signaled that they are completely out of touch with their own voter base, and intend on remaining so.

The path forward looks like it must be mass action, demonstrations, local strikes, leading up to even a general strike/work stoppage over Medicare for all/Single Payer. This won’t happen all at once, but a struggle may have just been forced upon us by those rich folks who want to take everything away. This is already happening in other parts of the world. In Brazil, there is a general strike underway to fight back against the austerity measures of the government. A general strike also occurred in Argentina back in April.

This decision yesterday, leaves us all vulnerable. Anyone can get sick at any time, and we are in a fight for our lives.  The time for intermediates is done.  If there is anyone that has an alternative to what I stated above, considering the balance of forces, I welcome your commentary on this.

-Marc

Further reading:

What is Single Payer?

 

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