Fundamental Reforms, U.S.-Style

Universal health care coverage must represent the single most polarizing issue between the Democrats and Republicans - and their singular constituents - in the United States at the present time. It's kind of a classic case of those that have and those that haven't; the rich and the poor, the entitled and the disentitled. For of course, it is mostly the poor underbelly of society that is affected so deleteriously by the current non-system.

Those who are well employed, who can afford their own insurance coverage, can afford to be disinterested in having health insurance coverage extended through state intervention to all citizens, on the basis that their taxes will be paying to advantage the disadvantaged. That separation in public conscience between the Republicans and the Democrats certainly represents a stark division in the national narrative.

The United States presents itself as the sole wealthy industrialized nation on this Globe without a universal health coverage scheme. Rather shameful, in fact, for such a socially, politically and technologically advanced economic powerhouse. How is that different than a country, say, like India, struggling to bring itself into social modernity and economic viability, with its millions-masses of indigent poor?

In the final steps toward achieving an agreement that would bring health-care reform to the country the universal health-insurance scheme has been diluted in its universality and general usefulness by an officiously disgruntled opposition of the hard right. Not only will states now be enabled to opt out of paying for abortions, but single states have been materially benefited by their Senate-grudging vote.

The overall goal of a government-responsive public insurance plan has been watered down to resemble a faint image of its original intent. And in the process Nebraska is excused from paying into the Medicaid fund; Vermont won a $9-billion concession to fund community health centres and Louisiana was gifted a $300-million Medicaid increase for their Senate votes, bringing the total to the 60 required to avoid a filibuster.

This kind of horse-trading is kind of fascinating, as elected members of the Senate and the House appear to prefer to represent not the good of the nation, but that of their individual states. Fascinating because one automatically thinks of the states as being united in their purpose to see fairness and justice prevail throughout the country, yet their primary focus is state, not country.

A confederation of singularly-entitled states? Bespeaking an all-too-human lack of national identity and a broader imagination to benefit the entirety.