The United States of America is the only advanced country in the world that does not offer some sort of universal health care coverage to its nations citizens.  Every other industrial nation in the world offers universal coverage, regardless of a person’s medical history.  It is time for the United States to take a step, small as that step may be, in the right direction.

On Thursday, Nancy Pelosi released a package of amendments to the Senate bill that was passed on Christmas Eve.  The amendments were put in place in order to improve on the original bill.  Hopefully on Sunday, the House of Representatives will pass the Senate bill, with passage of the amendments to the bill coming next week.  According to figures released by the Congressional Budget Office, the bill, along with the amendments, would cut deficits by 138 billion over the first decade and 0.5% of gross domestic product over the second decade, which amounts to about $1.7 trillion dollars.  The bill would mandate everyone to carry insurance, as well as offer subsidies to help low and middle-income Americans afford coverage.  According to a New York Times editorial, “To make up from a loss of revenue from the excise tax and help cover the enhanced benefits, the reconciliation package would extend the Medicare payroll tax for high-income Americans to include investment income, putting the burden on people who can clearly afford it.”

Let me first point out that I think this bill is extremely weak, and I’m disappointed that a more progressive bill couldn’t get passed.  With that being said, this is the best bill that I think this Congress can pass at this time.  There are definitely some good things in the bill.  Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage to people because of pre-existing conditions.  There is no Medicare buy in for people under 65 years of age, and no public option.  Regardless of what the idiots on the right say, this bill is in no way a government takeover of the medical industry (although I wish it were).  There is no federal funding for abortions (although there should be).  Just like the civil rights legislation, this bill is a small step that will hopefully lead to more comprehensive reform in the future.  The mandate to buy insurance coverage sucks, but it is a necessary evil.  As Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman put it, “To make insurance affordable, you have to keep currently healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that everyone or almost everyone buy insurance.  You can’t do that without financial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can pay the premiums.  So you end up with a tripartite policy: elimination of medical discrimination, mandated coverage, and premium subsidies.

The Tea Party and Fox News commentators are, as always, disingenuous.  They complain about the deficit and government spending, then they scream, yell, and protest a bill that will actually lower the deficit and help to control ballooning medical costs.  This bill is nowhere near what this country needs, but it is better than nothing.  The right wing says that they want health care reform as well.  But in eight years under George W. Bush, they did absolutely nothing to improve our failing health care system, inflated medical costs, and rising premiums.  And when President Obama added the amendments that the Republicans wanted in the bill, they still protested it and claimed that the American people don’t want it.  The fact of the matter is, when people are informed about what provisions are actually in the bill, they are overwhelmingly in favor of it.  The problem is, that people have been manipulated and misinformed by Fox News, right wing pundits, and Republican congressmen.  Let’s hope that Congress can pull together this weekend, and pass a bill that may actually do some good.