Universal Care Equals Apocalypse? Doubt It.

Did you ever stop to wonder why it is that all the other countries in the industrialized world manage to insure all their citizens and we can't? If what Ed fears is true, their economies should have collapsed generations ago. Yet somehow they haven't. The reason is simple: Making sure all your citizens have reasonable access to basic health care is good for your country. Your citizens will thrive and prosper, pay taxes and contribute to the economy. National (or universal) health care works, and has for generations. Nothing remotely like the apocalypse that Ed describes has come to pass in Europe, Canada or Japan. So it need not happen here. That's obvious.
In the rest of the world, no one goes bankrupt because they get sick. But most of the bankruptcies in the US are the result of medical bills. Prevention of millions of personal bankruptcies is only going to help the economy.
When Americans can afford the pain medications and treatment they need but have forgone, they will be able to get more done. More projects, more materials, more jobs.
Despite Ed's insistence, I am happy to live in a country that allows people to invest, to profit and to make absolutely stupid piles of money. But considering the spectacular failure of free market, private health insurance companies to meet the health care needs of all Americans, it is clear that government must step in and offer help. That's what it's there for.
And as to the expense, consider this: The cost for covering all uninsured Americans for the next 10 years -- about $900 billion -- is about equal to how much money the richest Americans saved as the result of a tax cut they got eight years ago. It also about equals the cost of the Iraq war (that one is a full trillion, kiddos).
I know my buddy Ed hates paying taxes. Maybe next time someone wants to invade a foreign land for no coherent reason, I hope I hear him kicking up a fuss. -- By Matt