Norman Solomon: Warfare and Healthcare

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/13359

Warfare and Healthcare
Healthcare Policy
by Norman Solomon | March 11, 2008


It's kind of logical. In a pathological way.

A country that devotes a vast array of resources to killing capabilities
will steadily undermine its potential for healing. For social justice. For
healthcare as a human right.

Martin Luther King Jr. described the horrific trendline four decades ago: "A
nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

If a society keeps approaching spiritual death, it's apt to arrive. Here's
an indicator: Nearly one in six Americans has no health insurance, and tens
of millions of others are badly under-insured. Here's another: The United
States, the world's preeminent warfare state, now spends about $2 billion
per day on military pursuits.

snip//

A recent New York Times story was authoritative as it plied the conventional
media wisdom. The lead sentence declared that an "immediate challenge that
will confront the next administration" is the matter of "how to tame the
soaring costs of Medicare and Medicaid." And the news article pointedly
noted that current federal spending for those health-related programs adds
up to $627 billion.

I've been waiting for a New York Times news story to declare that an
immediate challenge for the next administration will be the matter of how to
tame the soaring costs of the Pentagon. After all, the government's annual
military spending -- when you factor in the supplemental bills for warfare
in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is well above the $627 billion for Medicare and
Medicaid that can cause such alarm in the upper reaches of the nation's
media establishment.

Assessing the current presidential race, the Times reported: "The Democrats
do not say, in any detail, how they would slow the growth of Medicare and
Medicaid or what they think about the main policy options: rationing care,
raising taxes, cutting payments to providers or requiring beneficiaries to
pay more."

There are other "policy options" -- including drastic cuts in the Pentagon
budget. And healthcare for all.

[bemildred]

1. If we had a sensible military budget, it woud be a piece of cake to pay for universal health care.

Intrusive government regulation and a single-payer public health care system would do a lot to drive costs down too. But instead our "leaders" will wait until the present system totally collapses so they can pay for more stupid wars.

[Demeter]

2. We've Been Spiritually Dead Since Reagan

and I don't think we're ever coming back.