Healthcare

I think much of the debate on healthcare in the United States is based in the conflict between the for profit system of healthcare versus the advocates of affordable quality health care for everyone.
Much of the terminology in this debate is not about creating the best quality accessible healthcare, but actually about protecting and increasing profit.
I’m sure most people know this already.
For example, some say that subsidizing healthcare is socialism. The word socialism is a spin word that actually means fear of cutting into profits. When corporations and banks are subsidized it’s called a stimulus or bailout.
In order to create a more ideal system of healthcare, there will have to be a willingness to view healthcare as a public good rather than a for profit commodity. When profit for the powerful is a stake, this will be difficult.
One mistaken idea is that the for profit system is competitive and competition creates a better system. I’m sure most people already know that is not the way it is working. A common line is that the US healthcare system is broken.
When a time comes, when people begin to prioritize quality accessible healthcare for all over profits, then that is when a better healthcare system can be created.
The proof of this can be seen in the healthcare systems of Germany, France and Japan, where they have regulated healthcare costs, and income based health insurance. Any profits in these systems go back into the system. The priority there is healthy people.
Many people in the US do not know that the health outcomes in Germany, France and Japan are far better than in the US. People there have better health overall and live longer.
The US excels in innovation, but in other parameters, such as affordability, accessibility, efficiency, the US lags behind, despite the fact that healthcare in the US is the most expensive in the world, and is the most advanced.
I think we need to see healthcare as a public good, healthy people mean, ironically, more profit for everyone. Healthy people are more efficient in their work, make fewer mistakes, are absent from work less, are happier, more successful, and so commit less crime, have fewer accidents, take less illicit drugs, etc. In this way, businesses can be more profitable, family and social life can be more harmonious and profitable, the result being that everyone will profit, instead of just the corporations.
Everyone knows and accepts that the energy utility companies in the US are heavily regulated, but they don’t call it socialism. In a similar way, the healthcare system in the US could be regulated and along with the advanced innovation, the US could create the most advanced and accessible healthcare system in the world.
A healthcare system with regulated prices and income based insurance is the more efficient and accessible system based in common sense, and compassion and caring for people who are all part of our common family on planet Earth.