USA, May 4 — The Republicans passed an Obamacare repeal bill in the House of Representatives. Trump and his cronies are celebrating. Obamacare was never that great, but with its repeal millions will lose even the limited benefits it provided.
This would ultimately kill tens of thousands of sick and injured people who will get basically no treatment. The repeal, and the slashing of Medicare, would free up nearly a trillion dollars over the next decade. This trillion dollars will go into the pockets of the wealthy in the form of tax cuts.
The capitalists are truly a vampire class. They are almost literally drinking the workers’ blood!
Liberals are using this defeat to channel the opposition into the Democratic Party. MoveOn.org is urging people to contact their Senators to make sure they stop this bill in the Senate—which is likely. The Democrats hope to use this issue to get out the vote in 2018 when the whole House of Representatives is up for re-election.
Others are promoting some version of “Medicare for all.” In California, the legislature will consider SB562, modeled after the Canadian health care system. This would establish a publicly-run healthcare plan that would cover everyone living in California, including those without legal immigration status.
But none of these plans deal with the basic reason that so many people are sick and injured in the first place. (In the US, there are about a million people in the hospital on a typical day.) The answer, of course, is capitalism. Capitalism’s relentless push for profits sickens and injures huge numbers of us.
We’re fighting for communism. This will take an armed revolutionary struggle, but when we win, we’ll immediately eliminate money, wage slavery, and production for profit. We’ll organize society based on providing for human need—which will have important health benefits. The Party will mobilize masses to provide:
Clean water. Globally, nearly a billion people today lack access to clean water. Several million die each year from diseases caused by contaminated water. Clean water will be a priority under communism, and in most parts of the world this is just a matter of laying pipes. We’ll mobilize as many people as necessary to get the job done.
Clean air. Nearly 80% of the residents of big cities today are exposed to pollution that exceeds World Health Organization limits. Workers from Paris to Beijing are literally choking in smog. Communism, by eliminating profits, will allow us to organize production in ways that protect the environment—installing filters on smokestacks, for example. We’ll also organize collective public transportation and drastically reduce the number of individual automobiles (currently a billion).
Sanitation. Today, two and a half billion people lack proper sanitation—real toilets. Many live in slums with sewage running in the street or pooling on the ground. Enough! The masses will make toilets and lay pipes.
Good food. Nearly a billion people in the world are undernourished ( hungry). Tens of millions in Africa alone are threatened with outright starvation. At the same time, billions get enough calories, but are forced to consume profitable junk stuffed with sugar, salt, and dangerous fats. In some countries 10% of the population has diabetes! And 40% of food is destroyed today to keep prices up. When we produce for need, not for profits, we’ll produce healthy food and distribute it according to need—not destroy it!
Safe workplaces. Capitalists, in their frantic and never-ending race to beat their competitors, make workplaces very dangerous. More than two million workers a year are killed on the job, and several hundred million are injured. Under communism with competition and the profit motive abolished, we will be able to work at a reasonable pace and workers will insure that workplaces are safe.
Companionship. Loneliness can kill you. Communism will transform social relations so that no one is abandoned to survive on their own.
There’s also safe streets, safe transportation, sports (participation), music, singing, dancing, taking time off when you need it, challenging work to keep you sharp, lower stress (no bills or bosses to worry about). And don’t forget safe healthcare: caregivers will have time to make sure you get the right medicine and don’t get some nasty infection.
It may sound too good to be true, but it’s realistic – provided we abolish capitalism and its insane competition. We can’t eliminate illness and injury but no longer will there be capitalists around to harm or kill the billions that are currently stricken every year.
May Day 2017 in Los Angeles. Sign says” Health care and everything else, for everyone, for human need, not for profits–THAT’S COMMUNISM