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Health Reform Foes Are on Wrong Side of History

Access to health care should increase, not fade

By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff

Posted Mar 18, 2010 1:21 AM CDT
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(Newser) – The history of health care in America has been one of steadily improving health and lifespans as access to quality health-care has increased, writes Nicholas Kristof. The 1940s saw the greatest recorded increase in American lifespans as military mobilization improved access, he notes. This trend is now reversing, however, because of politicians' "ignominious failure over the last half-century to provide universal health care," he notes in the New York Times.

This reversal will continue and the number Americans with access to first-rate medical care will keep dropping if the GOP manages to kill health reforms, he warns. Lawmakers should stop fighting over procedure and focus on Americans' access to medical care, he writes. "On that issue, those trying to kill this health care reform proposal are simply on the wrong side of history," Kristoff writes.

Life expectancy increased by 7 years in the 1940s as war mobilization led to greater access to health care, Kristof writes.
Life expectancy increased by 7 years in the 1940s as war mobilization led to greater access to health care, Kristof writes.   (Getty Images)
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It’s astonishing that Republicans today are lined up overwhelmingly against a health care package that is more modest and moderate than one that Richard Nixon proposed in the early ’70s. - Nicholas Kristof

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 19 comments
sept1
Mar 18, 2010 6:45 PM CDT
True health care reform would be to get government out of health care so people could pay doctors instead of insurance companies.

Politicians do not provide health care. They do not provide jobs. They produce nothing.

My whole hippie Marxist generation has to die off before this country sees real CHANGE AND HOPE.
Sayyiduna
Mar 18, 2010 6:37 PM CDT
Pragmatically speaking, the longer Americans live, the longer they pay taxes. Universal coverage will cost a bit from the outset, but it will also give big pharma and medicine access to a new pool of patients that they can hook on expensive long-term therapies for the countless undiagnosed diseases that living without insurance would create.

It's a win-win on profitability, wish they'd see that so we can stop getting screwed over it. Stockholders are going to love this in the long-term.
Yourself
Mar 18, 2010 3:30 PM CDT
"those trying to kill this health care reform proposal are simply on the wrong side of history"

you forget that those trying to kill this health reform have universal health care of their own paid for by the tax payers, and you NEVER hear them complain about it, cause it's a functional, stable and reliable system.

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