Going Universal

Ezra Klein has an op-ed in the L.A. Times today in which he notes that just about everyone is backing some form of universal healthcare nowadays. Unions, heathcare professionals, businesses, patients -- even insurance companies.

The work is not done, of course. There are arguments yet to be had, wars yet to be fought.

Insurers want to retain their ability to discriminate against the ill and the old; conservatives want individuals to assume more risk and expense in order to force wiser health decisions; liberals want the government to guarantee universality and utilize its massive market power to bargain prices down to levels approximating those paid by other developed countries.

What's important, though, is that for the first time since the early years of the Clinton administration, these arguments are being made, and employers, insurers, politicians and, most crucially, voters are making their way back to the table.

The realization that our illogical, mistaken healthcare system can't go on forever has dawned, and so it will end. The question now is what replaces it.

It's good stuff, and well worth reading the whole thing.

Progressives, liberals and lefties should be pushing universal healthcare for all they are worth. As Ezra says of the current system: "employers can't afford it, individuals can't handle it and the country's conscience won't countenance it". Not to mention that for a developed, democratic nation to have a large segment (47 million, nearly the population of England) of its population not covered for basic healthcare is, not to put too fine a point on it, barbaric.