We need a national health plan

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Staff: Paul Colvin, Suzanne Forsyth, May May Gong, David Kirschner, Hayden Perry, Joe Ryan, Kwame M.A. Somburu, Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly for $6 per year by Socialist Action Publishing Association, 3435 Army St., No. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110. Second-class POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Socialist Action, 3435 Army St., No. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110.

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Newspapers around the country had front-page stories on Nancy Reagan's breast cancer in their Oct. 17, 1987, issues. Breast cancer is a tragic affliction regardless of whom it strikes. But Nancy Reagan, unlike the poor of this nation, received the very best of care. She had a small army of doctors and surgeons looking after her.

For both Mr. and Mrs. Reagan, medical care does not cost one red cent. Along with all elected and appointed government officials, they have "socialized medicine."

If a congressman gets wrinkles or a balding head, he can be renovated at the wink of an eye all at taxpayers' expense. "Spare no expense" is the slogan of our glorious leaders when it comes to their own health or beauty.

But the working class is left at the mercy of millionaire hospital executives who run our country's health system like any other profit-making business.

For the rest of us, healthcare costs have jumped over 600 percent since 1966. This year alone, the government wants an increase of 38.5 percent for Medicare. This increase will be taken from the pockets of the elderly and disabled.

Declining access to care Dr. Victor Sidel, president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and past president of the American Public Health Association, describes the appalling THE GOVERNMENT CANT AFFORD TO PAY FOR DRUGS TO HELP A.I.D.S. VICTIMS state of healthcare in the Sept. San Francisco Chronicle:

"In 1977, 25 million people in the United States lacked medical insurance. Today, more than 35 million people lack such coverage, and millions more have grossly inadequate plans."

In some states, fewer than 20 percent of those living in extreme poverty are eligible for Medicaid," Dr. Sidel states. "Declining access to care is also related to an increase in the number of people living in poverty."

"Today in the United States,"

THOSE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE IN A YEAR OR TWO ANYWAY ITS THROWING AWAY GOOD MONEY WHEN WE NEED IT FOR... he continues, "one in every four children below the age of six lives in poverty, with one of every two Black children in that age-span in that plight. The bottom 40 percent of our population receives 15.7 percent of the national income-the smallest percentage since the statistic was first collected in 1947. The U.S. infant mortality rate has stopped decreasing significantly, and in many areas the gap between rich and poor appears to be growing— even where infant mortality has declined."

Dr. Sidel goes on to urge a strong national health plan. "Such a program," he says, "would ensure that the poor have full access to health services.

AIDS epidemic The government has denied proper funding to research to meet the grave threat that AIDS poses to everyone. Both Congress and the administration have turned a deaf ear to the needs of hundreds of thousands who have already been stricken. Our pious politicians prefer to blame the victims rather than promote practical education and serious research.

These hypocrites certainly don't "just say no" to the $30 million an hour they spend on the military budget for death and destruction, or the hundreds of millions they give to the murderous contras.

When this country needed to invent the atomic bomb so that American imperialism could rule the world, they spared no expense. They spent billions on the Manhattan Project, which gathered together the cream of America's and the world's scientists and gave them all the material resources necessary to achieve this goal.

The challenge of AIDS Closing date: Oct. 25, 1987 Editor: ALAN BENJAMIN Asst. Editor: MICHAEL SCHREIBER Business Manager: DON MAHONEY postage is paid at San Francisco, Calif.

orders or checks should be in U.S. dollars.)

IMPORTANT PROJECTS!

AID BIOLOGICAL NUCLEAR TEAMS demands an effort on the same scale. Instead of 50 scientists working 100 years to find a cure, 5000 scientists could do it in closer to a year.

But the capitalist class, driven as it is toward maximizing profits by any means necessary, can be expected to resist such a life-loving course to the bitter end. Only the working class is capable of putting human needs before profits.

Piece-meal insurance

Unlike its European counterparts, the American labor bureaucracy gave up the fight for socialized medicine—or even the pretension of fighting for an independent workers' goal consistent with the needs of all humanity.

They accepted, instead, medical insurance plans on a piece-meal basis-each union adopting and paying for its own plan, exclusively for its own members. This left unorganized workers, for the most part, without any medical protection whatsoever.

Now, even workers with onceadequate medical plans are being forced to pay higher premiums for less coverage. Only a major political fight by the entire working class for full government-funded healthcare coverage can bring about the kind of healthcare service needed by everyone.

But to do this, labor needs to break with the Democratic Party and form its own political movement. Only a labor party based on the unions and independent of all capitalist politicians can lead the fight for working class needs like socialized medicine.

And only a resurgent rank and file determined to make their labor organizations serve their class interests can carry out such a successful struggle.

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