THE election issue, outside the Iraq Occupation

is, for me, in a nutshell, Healthcare NOT Health Insurance.

Besides, if you just read the Preamble to the US Constitution, you will plainly see that the Healthcare of the Citizenry IS one of the six directives of the founding document of our nation to the federal government.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

You've all (at least I hope you've all) heard the statistics: somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 MILLION of your fellow Americans lack health insurance and thus spend a part of every single day pondering the possibility of some major health event - and the ensuing destruction of their financial life.

I am one of them.  I work for a single doctor in a small clinic that serves mostly Medicare and Medicaid patients (over 97%). Imagine the irony of my daily life. I help provide healthcare to the elderly and the poor.  Unfortunately, that leaves my employer-doctor financially unable to provide healthcare insurance for himself or the other four employees of our small clinic.  Medicare and Medicaid do not pay well.  In addition, I am not old or poor enough to qualify for federal or state healthcare insurance assistance.  Perhaps irony is not a strong enough word.

Which brings me to the general state of our nation.

It never fails to amaze me, at least not for the past five years or so, when another momentous piece of our national psyche falls to the side of the road after being tossed out like so much trash by the mis-administration that is the G.W. Bush presidency.

Civil liberties such as personal privacy when it comes to telecommunications.  Gone.  The federal government cannot keep us safe unless they are allowed to listen in to our every electronic conversation, either verbal or written.  At least that is the rational being promulgated to raise support for the FISA bill being currently supported by no less than the Democratic Majority Leader, Harry Reid.  Go figure.

Invasion and Occupation of a sovereign nation.  I read that sentence and I want to think of Napoleon and Hitler, or Afghanistan in the 1970's and the USSR, but the truth is, it is my country that is now doing the invading and occupying.  Thomas Paine, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in their graves.

The attempts at dismantling the social safety-net created by the Presidents and Congresses following the Great Depression and WWI and WWII, via relentless attempts to privatize programs like Social Security and other programs that attempt to prevent poverty from destroying our older citizens after a lifetime of contributing to the wealth of the nation.  Who do these people think they are fooling?  I am not old enough to remember the Great Depression, but I am old enough to have spoken about it with relatives.  This nation has too much wealth to allow any part of our citizenry to live in abject poverty without end.  There is no excuse for having the attitude of "I've got mine, sucks to be you".

Which brings me back to Healthcare.

Which, as a basic directive to the federal government, as you will recall, from the Preamble

...promote the general Welfare...

should not involve profits for shareholders.

I refuse to apologize for thinking that my country of birth is too advanced socially and morally to continue to accept that anyone should be allowed, legally, to limit the care of a patient suffering in pain specifically to increase profits.  As my three year old granddaughter is wont to say these days, with a hint of her hispanic popi's accent, "I can't like eet".

Think of the disadvantage our big industrial producers have, at least the ones that are still here in the US, when it comes to competing in the Global Market that now dominates our economy.  How about GM locating plants in Canada instead of Michigan, because of the cost of healthcare for GM employees and retirees?

Think of the advantages of a nation of citizens who go regularly during their formative years and early adulthood to a physician for preventative healthcare.  If you are at least 40 years old, and have lived in the US all of your life, you remember quite well that from the 1950s through the late 1970s, most Americans were able to be seen regularly for yearly physicals, and received quite good preventative care from their family doctor - who had a long, established relationship with your family and it's healthcare history.  Compare that with the current healthcare insurance industry and it's easy to see what kind of system is more desirable, from both a personal and a public perspective.  Today's older generation, aged over 65 years, is the healthiest and longest-lived in American history.  

How about the general health status of the generation that will be in their shoes in another twenty-five years?  I predict it will be a generation who die earlier, from a variety of conditions that are mostly preventable:  
1.Lung cancer (cigarette smoking)
2.Diabetes (high fructose corn syrup-junk food-fast food)
3.Hypertensive heart disease (stress-filled modern life combined with causes of items @ 1 & 2)

In conclusion:

Our nation cannot afford to continue to spend healthcare dollars on insurance company profits.  It is that simple.  As a nation, we can well afford to "promote the general Welfare" if we do so on a non-profit basis.

Who wants to argue with the Founding Fathers on this one?

UPDATE:  I just read this diary by Eugene, which supports my views, so I recommend it to you for additional reading.