by Noam Chomsky
Turning to other areas, overwhelming majorities of the public favor expansion of domestic programs: primarily health care (80%), but also aid to education and Social Security. Similar results have long been found in these studies (CCFR). Other mainstream polls report that 80% favor guaranteed health care even if it would raise taxes – in reality, a national health care system would probably reduce expenses considerably, avoiding the heavy costs of bureaucracy, supervision, paperwork, and so on, some of the factors that render the US privatized system the most inefficient in the industrial world.
Public opinion has been similar for a long time, with numbers varying depending on how questions are asked. The facts are sometimes discussed in the press, with public preferences noted but dismissed as "politically impossible." That happened again on the eve of the 2004 elections. A few days before (Oct. 31), the NY Times reported that "there is so little political support for government intervention in the health care market in the United States that Senator John Kerry took pains in a recent presidential debate to say that his plan for expanding access to health insurance would not create a new government program" – what the majority want, so it appears. But it is "politically impossible" and has "[too] little political support," meaning that the insurance companies, HMOs, pharmaceutical industries, Wall Street, etc. , are opposed.
3 comments:
Nurturing our own culture is "politically impossible," but both destroying and than rebuilding another country is politically feasible. Or at least it is feasible for those who own stock in Lockheed Martin and have a retirement home awaiting in some tax sheltered, off shore paradise, where perhaps the air is still breathable.
It's time to acknowledge, I think, the stake that the media has in maintaining the healthcare status quo. After all, have you ever noticed just how much pharmaceutical advertising one sees on network t.v. and in the mainstream press? The monthly advertising supplements in the NY Times Sunday magazine are staggering, and similar things run in USA Today, etc. So, given that the press is wary of biting the hand that feeds it, it is unlikely that they are going to push for a national health care system that may have an impact on the health industry's profits.
I worked in publishing. I know that articles do not get written that expose one of your major advertiser's dirty laundry.
Did you see that segment I put on my blog where they were interviewing the Presidents of news from the 3 non-cable tv networks? Their excuse for not providing free air time to candidates, for example, was that the candidates just showed up with pre-prepared stump speeches and recited whatever dogma that their campaign consultants had told them would sell.
However, I don't see why we shouldn't require the networks to have a given amount of time whether the public can query candidates (like they did in that second presidential debate.)
Limit the amount that the campaigns can spend on tv advertising and then they would be less dependent on corporate PAC money to get elected. Then they can say whatever they want in these debates without having to worry about it killing their chances to get elected.
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