LET'S ADOPT UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR ALL

Paul O'Neill, former Secretary of the Treasury in W's first two years, writes an interesting op-ed in today's The New York Times proposing universal catastrophic medical insurance for all Americans.

Writes O'Neill:

"The two organizing principles would be that the costs of catastrophic care would be spread across the population through insurance, and that while the high costs of serious medical problems would be covered, there would still be large deductibles for most Americans for initial care. (These could be paid out of pocket, or consumers could take out supplemental insurance to cover them.)"

But why can't we as an affluent society provide not only catastrophe insurance but universal health care to all? Instead of wasting billions on the disastrous war in Iraq every month, we could provide not only children, not only seniors, but everyone with both hospital and doctors' care, including universal coverage for prescription drugs.

The only thing stopping such universal health care are the Republicans, like George W. Bush. He has called the S-CHIP program a step towards "socialization of medicine," and "nationalization of health care." The other Republican presidential candidates, like Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, mimic Bush's fear of universal coverage. Heck, they would rather have kids go to the emergency room and wait five hours for care rather than allow universal health care. Of course, Bush, Romney and Giuliani all have super health care, government provided from their times in office.