Comments

1

If Chopp brings this to vote, I’ll be very shocked.

2

I'm troubled by the refrain that "Health care is a right." I'm not sure that benefits the cause. Free speech is a right, but that doesn't obligate the government to buy you a printing press. Gun ownership is a right, but the government doesn't provide the guns. Freedom of religion is a right, but that doesn't mean the government sets up the houses of worship. And you wouldn't want them to, right? So how does "health care is a right" advance the cause?

3

It's important to have universal health care while we embrace and celebrate morbid obesity.

4

@2: Exactly. Needs and rights are different. Health care is need, housing is need, nutrition is a need. Free speech is a right, justice is a right, etc.

5

@3: LOL I hope you remembered to stretch before you took that leap.

6

@3: While I am aware you are just trying to rustle jimmies, this is honestly something that needs to be examined.

We really have no idea yet what happens when a society that is as fat and sedentary as ours starts getting older.

Basically all the of the visible "obese but still 'healthy!'" people are in their 20s and 30s. Much easier to advocate for obesity and to believe you have healthy habits when you still have young joints, a young heart, and a young pancreas.

We have to be prepared for the explosion of heart disease, diabetes, and joint failures that is coming for millennials and Gen Z unless these trends start to reverse themselves in the next couple decades.

It is going to be really bad. Really bad.

7

@3 & 4 When signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the United States of America acknowledged that a right to health care includes access to health care and buildings but also to “underlying determinants of health” such as drinkable water, safe and healthy food, adequate housing, healthy working and environmental conditions, health education and gender equality; The right to a system of health protection providing equality of opportunity for everyone to enjoy the highest attainable level of health; The right to prevention, treatment and control of diseases; Access to essential medicines; etc ...

https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Factsheet31.pdf

8

"Needs" and "Rights" are just words with arbitrary meanings. Its not like the drafters of the first amendment found the right to free speech under some bushes someplace - they created it through legislation.

People are free to formulate arguments for why we shouldn't do this with health care. But appeals to Webster's aren't going to cut the mustard.

9

"Universal Declaration of Human Rights"

@7 Shame it has the same legal authority in the US as a 13 year old girl's cellphone contract with her parents ie. zero, nada, zip.

10

@9 well, if anything, it shows that YOU have no moral authority compared to Americans half a century ago.

11

SCOTUS has ruled that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is an international document, that has no impact on US domestic law.

12

@11 Well, it's a Declaration of Human Rights signed by the United States of America so it must hold some truth and moral authority, which you are clearly lacking.

13

Molina primarily contracts with Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP, so their support is not surprising.

14

@12 I didn't say anything other than it has zero legal authority in the US legal system, which it doesn't.

But keep flapping your lips.

15

@14 it'll have all the legal authority we need when universal healthcare becomes law. Your whining is hardly going to make a difference.

In the meantime, it's worthwhile noting that you have no moral authority compared to Americans half a century ago. What happened to you?

16

@15 If you stopped choking your chicken to AOC videos you’d realize you have a snowball’s chance in hell. And I say that as someone who suffered through rationed socialist medicine for 20 years.

17

Yeah, the debate regarding whether or not a specific cause elevates to that of "human right" is probably subjective and debatable. Though the reality is that we, as a society, have long since recognized universal care access as a "fundamental" right for many years. And we will assuredly continue to do so. Just show up to any ER anywhere in the country complaining of some symptom or abnormality and try to escape without being seen, diagnosed and treated, regardless of whether or not you're insured. I can assure you that it will not happen. And that basic compassionate decency on our part is what has resulted in so many poor/homeless individuals using the ER as their PCP, which is far more costly, inefficient and inhumane than treating them preventively by way of a single payer model.

18

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….” Not a big leap at all to make health care part of the inalienable Right to Life described by Jefferson.

19

Thank you, Rich!
@3: An overconsumption of caffeine and BigMacs might be what keeps you Screaming into the Night.
@5 Lissa: I know, right? LOL
@13 Escapee from S. Idaho: Agreed. Not surprising news about Molina, Planned Parenthood, Applecare, and others supporting universal single-payer healthcare. As a subscriber I am most humbly grateful. The private sector is a bad joke at the expense of the average working class U.S. citizen. Hooray to Washington State legislature! Further proof that we are fortunate to be in the sane Washington---and that the corrupt Evil Empire is 3,000 miles away.

20

@18 Right to lifer are you now?

21

Rep. Harris' comments are what I always expect to hear from the real "job creators" in this country. When the government could take this burden off your business, why would you not be jumping up and down cheering for them to do so?

@16: I haven't been able to afford access to healthcare in years, so I'd happily take this system you're alluding to, over what we have now.

@20: Considering this is the second comment on the account created in 2017, I'd say not a particularly vocal one either way.

23

@22 Doofus in Shoreline: Um...yeah---that's what the RepubliKKKans in California, New York, Colorado, and especially red states that refuse to vaccinate their children or give a shit about women's health want you to believe....

24

How are you Washingtonians going to do single-payer without an income tax?

Most countries that do away with private insurance fund their healthcare system through taxation instead (costing individuals and businesses less than private insurance premiums, but still shifting the burden to another mechanism). Oregon and California have state income taxes, which Washington could to well to emulate, and scrap that regressive sales tax while you're at it. I suppose you could just try introducing a separate State Health Insurance tax, but would it be based on income or some kind of non-progressive per-individual flat rate? With all the billionaires in King County, I'd say you'd best propose a two-tiered tax. A low basic tax on all, with an income-based graduated tax on the more wealthy to supply subsidies for the low- and non-earning.

Good luck with that. I'm sure the weathy and self-interested libertarians among you will be eager to help out.

25

@22 and Vermont. They dropped it like a hot potato when they saw the price tag.

27

Some have suggested a universal single payer scheme encompassing all the Pacific states except Alaska. It’s not a bad idea, although I’d certainly include Alaska if they were somehow willing to join.

Then again, I do kind of like the idea of a Cascadia wide system. I read Callenbach’s book Ecotopia in college, and fell in love with the idea of joining BC, WA and OR into a single, independent country. Maybe if it grew together gradually, developing as a series of institutions such as a Universal Single Payer system and a regional version of a state bank, it might become a fully developed nation someday.


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