Medicare for All, which The Associated Press recently reported would have the government pay for all medical services, is about more than health care.
It is about freedom from having our health care needs tied to the economics of life.
Our country’s and our personal financial ups and downs must not affect our very basic need to remain in good health.
Air, water and nutrition are the basic requirements to remain alive, and proper health care ensures the benefits of those three are not spent upon us in vain.
When “single-payer” universal health care is understood to be life-essential, and providing it for all has become prioritized as a service like running water and the flow of electricity, then we will have moved closer to our ideal of freedom.
Freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness is why we are the United States of America.
Some politicians argue against supporting Medicare for All because it currently has too many unanswered questions, such as the quality of the delivery of service, the individual’s cost, the American Medical Association’s transition phase, rural delivery of service, the availability of supplemental coverage and, of course, the government’s cost.
These questions are valid for the discussion, but to reject the possibility of the notion because the discussion phase is not yet finished is — in my opinion — irresponsible.
When our politicians have the vision for our health care needs that they should have, and the courage to advance us toward having those needs met, which is always above any of their other political mandates, then Medicare for All will become the reality for us that it needs to be, and inevitably will be.
James V. Loran,
Port Angeles