Some people are complaining about the idea of a government mandate requiring people to purchase health insurance. I would object to that concept also, if the mandate applied only to certain people.
In 1937 the great majority of American workers were "mandated" into the Social Security system, with no option to choose another retirement plan. To make sure they didn't wander away or choose another system, their "premiums" were forcibly withheld from their paychecks.
However, there were glaring exceptions, more in keeping with a monarchy than a democracy. Those who wrote the law made sure they themselves, all other elected politicians, governmental appointees and rank-and-file government employees were not bound by any such mandate. With no concern whatsoever about unfair treatment of their fellow citizens, all the people in this privileged class enthusiastically embraced their more generous retirement system, along with their superior overall benefit packages. To add insult to injury, many of that privileged class later went on to retire early, take outside jobs and "double dip" in order to receive both Social Security and their plum government benefits!
It always struck me as fundamentally unfair that employees working directly for the Social Security Administration were never bound by the system themselves, availing themselves instead of the more generous plan provided for government workers. Not once over the years have I heard any expressions of guilt or remorse from those who took advantage of a system skewed in their favor.
I don't remember the source of the quote, but years ago I was told, "People take advantage of their advantages." Nowhere has this been truer than in this case.
End result: Hard-working retirees limited to Social Security have had to struggle, while the very people their taxes paid all those years have been able to enjoy a comfortable retirement. Stories abound about politicians and appointed officials who retired with benefits equal to or even higher than their actual salaries, and all other government workers at every level received generous retirement packages. All those advantages were accepted with straight faces, with nary a trace of guilt towards those "other" citizens whose hard non-governmental work had supplied taxes to make all those superior benefits possible.
Why have we allowed such an unjust, undemocratic, un-American system for over 70 years? Why was there never a revolt by the masses against this inequity? Why didn’t one of the millions of privileged beneficiaries step forward and demand equal treatment for those unfortunates who were not "in" on the gravy train? Did not one person see that the system was reminiscent of the monarchy we had rejected in 1776, with “royalty” at the top enjoying luxuries unavailable to the “peasants” at the bottom?
The ultimate irony is that people who now depend on Social Security retirement are derided and looked upon as "welfare" cases, even though they did as they were told, worked hard and paid into an inferior system mandated by people who were not obligated to do the same.
I contend that, if only the Social Security system had applied to everyone in government, those in charge would have made sure it provided much better benefits for all. As it is, it was easy for them to ignore the “other people’s” system.
Turning to the current health care debate, it is time we stopped treating the political "powers that be" as royalty, entitled to luxuries at the expense of the masses. The only logical answer is a single-payer system, in which the average worker's benefits are the same as those of the ones writing the laws.
If Congress really believes the words in the Declaration of Independence that "all...are created equal," then it's time they finally act accordingly.
A mandate is fair, but it must include everybody, with no exceptions for the ruling class.
Who could object to such equality? Certainly not the founding fathers, who mandated equality as a “self-evident truth.”
Now, 233 years after equality was mandated in the Declaration of Independence, it is time that we finally do away with the old, unfair, undemocratic, double-standard, double-tiered, unequal policies and mandate equality as envisioned when this country was founded.
By the way, a single-payer system would not mean the end of insurance companies. They could continue to sell life, home and auto insurance--just no more health insurance, no more dictating to doctors how to practice medicine, no more cherry-picking of customers and no more unjustified denials of coverage.
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