HEALTH CARE: Issue shouldn’t be partisan
BAMBI LIN LITCHMAN; Tacoma
When my parents were children during the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s ground-breaking legislation brought Social Security, the FDIC, banking relief and regulation, the 40-hour work week, unemployment compensation, collective bargaining, etc., to the American people. These enormous improvements (which many take for granted today) were vigorously opposed by the Republican Party and big business interests.
These important laws made our country immensely stronger.
Health care reform need not be a partisan issue. It was a grave concern of presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama.
Health care reform is a moral imperative and financial necessity. If nothing is done, the spiraling costs of health care will bankrupt the country while 45,000 people will continue to die annually due to lack of access to affordable care. Too many will continue to go bankrupt from medical expenses despite the fact that they actually have health insurance.
Abraham Maslow, an important 20th-century psychologist, noted that human beings cannot evolve and contribute optimally until their basic needs have been met. Health care is a basic need.
What kind of society do we wish to cultivate? The nation is again at a historic crossroads. The time for reform is now.
