April 6, 2012
Health Care Is Rationed By Private For-Profit Insurance Companies. Is That Really What We Want?
We are told by conservatives that we don’t want government-run universal health care because it would mean rationing care. During the health care debate in the summer and fall of 2009 we heard talk of ‘death panels’ and ‘killing grandma’. Of course all of this was nonsense meant to scare people into thinking and voting a certain way, and it was quite effective, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle. The truth is we already ration health care in the United States. 50 million people are uninsured. How is that not rationed care? Health care costs are higher than they need to be (due to insurance company profits and waste) which means in some cases people forego treatment because they can’t afford it (even if they have insurance). How is that not rationed care?
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