Medicare for all, a contentious issue in the United State of America. There are some who'd have the whole system replaced wholesale, and some fewer who'd leave it in place as is forevermore. The former though are seemingly powerless against the votes of the latter, as proven by Sanders' loss to Biden in the Democratic Party primary, as both embodied the systems they wanted to bring about or leave alone. One is now president, and the other relegated to near obscurity in the Senate, destined to serve out the remainder of his term neutered and forgotten.
Sanders was the Medicare for All advocate in the Democratic Party's primary, and on this issue he very nearly won. However, against the power and money of the current leadership of the party, he faltered midway, and so the battle for victory for medicare for all was delayed yet again. Perhaps as Ted Kennedy before him, he may likely pass on from this life without ever having fulfilled his lifelong goal of bringing to America universal healthcare.
It really should be thought of as a battle. A war, even, as winning this fight would mean nothing short of a revolution. Universal healthcare is really a revolutionary cause in the USA as its institution would upend an entire economic system that would not survive on its own without constant government intervention in insuring it does not collapse into bankruptcy as its many, many customers must when facing medical emergencies.
What the USA has created due to its current private care medical system is a new age indentured servitude. People must work to be someday free of the burden of healthcare costs. However, to become sick or injured in this system before ever reaching self-sufficiency is to become trapped in a powerful downward spiral of ever exponentially increasing costs that lead to ruin or death from no longer being able to access medical services when the insurance and personal savings run out. So, to not work from sickness or injury is to risk livelihood at the cost of health and even life. It is to cede one's place in the economic machinery that has well crushed much of working society into grease, reducing people from valuable and necessary cogs into mere lubricant ensuring that while the machine may run overly hot, it won't break down.
Indentured servitude is a system nearly as deeply rooted in the fabric of American society as slavery. It is a bit older, and mostly forgotten but its institution in the Americas predates the first European-owned slave brought to American shores. Often, the young were brought over with a promise of land at the end of their contracts, and reduced to servitude to an increasingly prosperous land-owning class. However, they were eventually granted land at the end of their contracts. In contrast, the young workers of today have little to earn from their own servitude as any and all land in the Americas has come under the control of financial barons. They are instead given promise of the "American dream", which has become meaningless as there little people can do to change their lots in life except hope for a bit of luck. Effort gets Americans nowhere as what effort could earn prior was limited: ownership.
America is built on ownership today. Many Americans nowadays own nothing. They are renters in a rentiers paradise. Americans don't even own their own health and must rent it from medical institutions that are under the heel of the medical insurance industry.
The medical insurance industry controls the fate of a majority of working Americans. Bad health leads to unemployment. Unemployment leads to further decline in health. Poor health leads to decline and early death for a large segment of the American working population.
Medicare for All would overturn this system entirely. It would have an incredible stimulative effect as many of these Americans would suddenly have thousands and tens of thousands of dollars to spend on other costs. Many, many Americans would suddenly have the opportunity to improve their health, which would improve their working production, which would improve companies profits over the long run. Many other Americans who are locked out of labour by their health would become available to fill positions, which again leads to more dollars being spent.
However, the rentiers of health would never allow this as their control over Americans' health grants them immense profit. They hoard all the profit that would result in a more productive America. Hence, why Medicare for All is a revolutionary idea.
Thus, Americans who sincerely want to improve Americans' lot in life must pursue this policy uncompromisingly: No compromise! Immediate Medicare for All. This would be taking a page from the Abolitionists, who had to fight for over thirty years to overturn American slavery.
No fight in American history has been won piecemeal. Every progressive victory has been won in a singular stroke. Slavery was ended at once in America. Equal rights was won at once. Improvement in the workplace was won in the New Deal, which ended at once unfair labour practices.
And like these fights, Medicare for All can only be won at once. It would take courage not seen in American politics for a long time. There are no leaders right now who have the ability and resolve to win this fight. There are no equals to Charles Sumner or Thaddeus Stevens in Congress right now. Just a bunch of waffling and intimidated uncoordinated pretenders.
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