Health Care is a Right

After nearly a century of failed attempts by U.S. Presidents to enact Health Care Reform, President Obama signed legislation on March 23 to overhaul the nation's health care system. Even though it doesn't contain a Public Option this bill does much to fix the status quo of our broken health care system.

The landmark bill signed by Mr. Obama will provide coverage to an estimated 30 million people who currently lack it. The measure will require most Americans to have health insurance coverage; would add 16 million people to the Medicaid rolls; and would subsidize private coverage for low- and middle-income people. It will regulate private insurers more closely, banning practices such as denial of care for pre-existing conditions. The law will cost the government about $938 billion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which has also estimated that it will reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion over a decade.

Clearly, the uninsured are clearly the biggest beneficiaries of the legislation. For people already covered by a large employer — most Americans, in other words — the effect would not be as significant. And yet, just about everyone might benefit from tighter insurance regulations.

To those who complain of government takeover of health care one need look no further than our military, Medicare, and Social Security systems. Additionally, the Federal Government already has a big role in our lives with the subsidization of religion.  For those conservatives who complain about the rising federal deficit the Congressional Budget Office's estimates should be a welcome relief. However, the ability of the reform to stem the federal deficit has less to do with the opposition's motives than the need for the Republicans, who are fractured as a party, to create a failure for President Obama. Also, the cost, $938 billion, is a fraction of what is spent daily in Iraq and Afghanistan, a fact I hear few conservatives complaining about.

While not having the national system of healthcare that I think this country needs, we are the only modern democracy in the whole world with no national system of healthcare, this bill is a step forward for our country and a godsend for all those American citizens, 32 million, who don't have healthcare.