Medicare for all
–Or at least for more. As this writer has noted more than once, the way to get young and healthy people into general coverage is to expand Medicare to cover everyone up to age 26. Why not? What would be the argument against? –This is the cohort least liable to the ills of old age, after all; least liable to need long-term care, to decline into Alzheimer’s dementia, least liable to be diagnosed with colon cancer or breast cancer or pancreatic cancer, least prone to heart disease or strokes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Et cetera.
Not that youth doesn’t have its problems, where health and survival are concerned. As previously written, a host of ills awaits to tackle healthy young people–alcohol and other substance abuse, eating disorders including over-eating and the reverse, aggression and guns, dangerous/reckless driving, pointless accidents, dangerous sports and games, and of course war, among others. Every thinking parent is well aware of the possibilities.
But all these, we can tackle. To some extent, the attempts have already begun, with some effect.
Even with all the problems, a large population awaits better wellness and better coverage, with the fiscal pay-off of lowering health care costs partly by spreading the risk far wider. Let’s hope it happens some time.
This comes to mind today, of course, because the cable channels were–just a few minutes ago–all agog with certainty that the Supreme Court would announce a ruling on health care today. Thank God for C-Span, also covering the issue, which instead of inflicting more political prognosticators on a long-suffering public, showed the activists–all sides–demonstrating and speaking in front of the Supreme Court building.
Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C.
Two Supreme Court rulings were announced today: Ms. Justice Kagan read the court’s opinion, on a five-to-four decision, against life without parole for juveniles; and Mr. Justice Kennedy read the court’s opinion, Kagan abstaining, invalidating much of Arizona’s sweeping Latino-profiling law (Arizona v. United States).
Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona
Meanwhile, the Dow plunged in early trading this morning. Looks as though the stock market was less gleeful, or perhaps spiteful, over speculation that ‘Obamacare’ would be struck down than were many of the cable commentators. Most of them are just chafing in resentment over their misreading of the public anyway. It is still remarkable that the Washington Post, among other periodicals, went thirty years without reporting insurance abuses.
And speaking of resentment, we still hear wofully little about public reaction to the insurance companies. Many, many commentators have harped on Tea Party anger over the individual mandate. Few, very few, commentators have pointed out that that anger does not speak well for the insurance industry.
Aside from undertakers and mortuaries, is there any industry in America that has more reluctant customers than the insurance industry?
How flood plains work
We also still hear little genuine reporting on flood insurance as a massive transfer of wealth. But then, the officeholders most vehemently denying climate change or most eagerly avoiding it as a topic are the same people, by and large, most in the pay of the insurance industry.