Complex problem, simple solution -- universal heath care

The most import reason for extending health care to all citizens should rest on something solid. While many softhearted liberals might say morality compels us to provide minimal health care -- at the least -- to all citizens, practical considerations will always insist with maximum volume that we deal with them first.

Fine, I happen to have the answer to the health care stalemate. And, it's not buried in a mountain of details, it's a fairly simple concept: 

America’s greatest natural resource is its citizenry -- it’s everyday workforce. The federal government should protect that resource above all others, in every way it can that's available to it. Without workers and consumers there is no economy.

Without a healthy middle class America's future is dim.

Whether they like their jobs or not, America’s sons and daughters go to work on good days and bad to pursue happiness, such as it might be. Toward that end they establish families and create communities. Just as society has recognized that our vital natural resources need to be protected from fast-buck artists, why would we not also protect our families' wage-earners in the most efficient and effective way we can?

Otherwise, what's the point of protecting the water we drink, the air we breathe, or the animals with which we share the planet?

A few years ago there was a scandal in this country over poisonous toys that had been imported from China. It was found that some of the materials weren’t safe, health-wise, for children to handle. The toys were pulled off retailers’ shelves. Hopefully it was done in time.

Those bad toys never made it into France. Like some other civilized countries, the French regulators never let them across their border in the first place.

France had rigorous standards and inspections that kept those tainted toys out of the curious hands and mouths of French kids. They didn't have to recall the dangerous products, because in France the standards were higher and the regulations were already in place. People were put before profits.

Why?

It’s actually simple -- France picks up the tab on everybody’s hospital bills.

Since France’s government has a heavy stake in keeping all French children healthy, rich and poor, its government naturally feels obliged to move proactively to reduce risks. Dig it: one day those French kids will either be healthy or unhealthy workers ... or too sick to work.

Although conservatives still like to mock France for all sorts of silly things, its government cares much more about French workers than our government does about American workers. How happy are you that France is doing plenty more to protect its future workforce than we are?

When the French government pays the health care bills, it follows that it will take more of an interest in protecting everyone’s health. In the long run, as far as paying for a nation’s health care goes, investing in prevention is sensible because it will save money. More importantly, it protects the vital workforce.

Universal health care, with periodic mandatory examinations, is the only way to monitor the spread of dangerous diseases that could become epidemics. Such diseases have the potential to put the kibosh on any nation's economy, to say the least.

Eventually, America will come around to embracing a single-payer universal health care system. It will join its European allies in this respect, one day.

The real question is: When that day comes, will it be a healthy America that chooses to walk upright to that inevitability? Or, will America be crawling toward it on its belly, sick and tired?

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