ObamaCare is not the answer

says Alexander Cockburn

LAST UPDATED 11:08 AM, AUGUST 14, 2009

The first illusion to chase off the stage is that the great debate in the United States has much to with health. So far as public health is concerned, many of the biggest battles were fought and won a hundred years ago, at the end of the 19th century, with better nutrition, birth control, the change from wool to cotton clothing, the introduction of modern sanitation in the urban environment and - most important - clean water.

Between 1900 and 1973 American life expectancy went from 47 to 71 but most of this rise had taken place by 1949 when the average life span reached 68. Much of the upward curve could be attributed to improved survival rates for infants and young people. Prohibition helped, since people drank less alchohol, ate more and hence TB rates dropped sharply, well before the introduction of sulfa drugs.

Health in America is class-based, naturally. The poor die sooner, starting with black men who tend to drop dead in their middle 60s, usually from stress and diseases consequent upon eating fried food. The better-off folk drink less than they did in the 1950s, take a bit more exercise and sometimes live longer. The poor get fatter and fatter. A real health plan would start with public executions of the top thousand CEOs and owners of the major food companies and fast food franchises.

A real health plan would start with public executions of the CEOs of the major food companies and fast food franchises

The plagues of America today are beyond the reach of the modern medical system, and that system is itself a peculiarly outrageous example of antisocial imperatives: high technology health care which serves fewer and fewer people. Part and parcel of this system are the drug companies, working in concert with the hospitals and insurance industry. Doctors have long since been shoved to the side as major players.

Shunned in all this are the major causes of modern disease which are environmental. Between 70 and 90 per cent of all cancer is environmental in origin. Heart disease and stroke - the largest killers today - are largely caused by hypertension and stress, which are derived from social conditions.

America is very efficient in promulgating Death Plans - tobacco, sugar additives, excessive salt, nitrous oxides out of power plant chimneys, nuclear testing in the 1950s, industrial accidents, speed-up at work and lengthening of the working day, rush hour traffic - launched in the hope of making a buck and protected fiercely until, very occasionally, the mountain of corpses gets too high to be occluded by even the most refined techniques of the PR industry and the most lavish contributions to politicians. Thus it was with tobacco.

Health reform in the 1930s, in the Roosevelt era, came mostly in the guise of the Wagner Act - a better deal for unions and workers - and Social Security. Old people got something to live on in their later years. Health reform in the 1950s and 1960s came with better wages, a shorter working week, more leisure, plus Medicare - the federal health plan for older people - driven through Congress by the most consummately cunning and accomplished politician of the post-war era and maybe of the 20th century (unless you make the case for FDR), Lyndon Johnson, who really did care about poverty, having seen a lot of it up close in Texas.

Since then we've gone nowhere. Nixon declared war on cancer and founded the Environmental Protection Agency - but corporate pollution continued virtually unabated, courtesy of the energy industry and modern, chemical-based agriculture.

In 1977 the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition, chaired by

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Americans do not want socialist style medicine. I have been reading for several months sad tales from UK residents about their NHS; one lady even went to Boston, USA for surgery which she could not get in the UK. Now the British have remembered their patriotism, as they try to defend their NHS. What is amazing is how the Brits are so obsessed with everything American, whereas Americans are not too concerned with those who live on the other side of "the pond".

Posted by myrna smith at 2:16am on August 15, 2009

Cockburn should at least be grateful that his nice little Obama bashing earner continues with the health care debate. The truth (as always) is very simple - Obama has done more in health care in SIX MONTHS than the EIGHT YEARS of the 'worst presidency' of the USA. And whilst Bush inherited surpluses from the Clinton era, Obama is faced with this daunting task in the aftermath of the worst meltdown since the Great Depression. I can foresee a very contrite Cockburn in eight years time, hopefully doing penance by swallowing an egg facial !

Posted by Iqbal Halani at 8:14am on August 15, 2009

Gads, you are negative about the positive and positive about the negative, when you want to be. Take this for instance:There is a strong eugenic thread to American progressivism, most horribly expressed in its very successful campaign across much of the 20th century to sterilise 'imbeciles'. And guess what? You forget to mention that this idea was actively engaged by the Bush family, while M. Sanger dithered and changed her mind back and forth like a woman would. I think it shows when their belief in their superiority and the power to assert this medical option led them surely to massive military genocides. Some of us discussed this in a forum over at The Guardian.UK.Co. during the French elections a few years back. But the on-line edition does not keep these posted quoted sources archived. Sources often claim that by the end of the Twenties, with the Crash, and the beginning of the Thirties and armament requests from the Germans who could otherwise not meet their required war reparations as levied, that Adolf Hitler became intrigued with the Sanger/Bush Conservative but Eugenics Movement nevertheless; and forthwith applied the notion, as he gradually envisioned it, within the next decade.

Posted by Hazel_White at 4:26pm on August 16, 2009

At last!! Someone comes out with something that isn't a pack of lies and is not the usual drivel! I think Mr Cockburn can be a jerk at times, but this time he has hit the NAIL squarely on the head! Well Done!!!!

Posted by sean@oz at 2:31am on August 17, 2009

myrna smith: You're easily convinced of what you want to think, bet you've been searching out these 'sad tales from UK residents about their NHS' and avoiding anything remotely like the truth. We don't have to 'remember our patriotism' nor do we have to 'try to defend our NHS', it's way superior to your rich online system, which allows people to lie in the street sick if they don't have a medicard on them. And FYI we aren't obsessed with everything American, we have your sick country thrust down our throats by politicians and the advertising industry. Actually, most people in the UK know just what America is about; killing as an entertainment, the poor being fed from food kitchens while the rest of you sneer at them for being poor in a system which depends on the poor being exploited. So keep your ignorance to yourself, don't come here and then make use of the NHS you clearly despise for being free for everyone at the point of delivery - which quite a few US visitors have been very grateful for over the years. If you're 'not too concerned with those who live on the other side of "the pond"' why are you expressing your spurious, ignorance here in a British journal. Stick with Fox for you adfomation, you've been brainwashed all your life. The ONLY people entitled to criticise the NHS are those who a) pay for it, b) use it, and c) know what they're talking about. 'Socialist style medicine' and other kneejerk idiot mouthings sum you up as one of the ludicrously challenged neocons, as if free medical care for all was some kind of evil; what do you want, the poor to die in the streets, or preferably in their shacks where you don't have to step over them?

Posted by Peter Simmons at 10:23am on August 17, 2009

Why are there lobbyists that the people don`t know or see ? That is where the mischief is made against the nation. To change the system, unmask these people to show what all the anti Obama groups are coming from and who they really represent and protect. Then with the field clear , implement what is good for America. What you have now is not democracy, but the power of the powerful ,and that is not the voice of the majority. And you want to export YOUR system of " Democracy" to the rest of the world ? Your Democracy should be spelled Demockery.NHS serves everyone and everyone.

Posted by yeti@gofree.indigo.ie at 10:44am on August 17, 2009

sean: Read your own newspapers, I know the Brits are now catering to Muslims and other immigrants, so you may have missed the references to the health care items. Be honest, do some research there are many articles about the conditions in the UK. Methinks you do protest too much

Posted by myrna smith at 12:34am on August 18, 2009

Yes,we do not need Obama Care. As a Medicare recipient,I can sat with first hand knowledge,we do not need Obama,Henry Reed,and Nancy Pelosi messing in something that in God's green earth they have NO idea what they are doing. Besides,they have a level of care that far exceeds what we peons are getting. They don't care about the others. Our costs have been rising every year. Social Security NEVER has had more than about a 2.8% cost of living increase. Cost of living has been double that.

Posted by John Jester at 12:46am on August 18, 2009

John Jester, you seem very confused [both here and elsewhere] your post makes no sense. All you American idiots need to know is that Cuba has a superior health care system to the US. Go chew on that monkey.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 1:17pm on August 18, 2009

Surely we should try to get a world health system that has a cure for the indifferent minded right wing in America...that is the real Swine Flu virus...

Posted by hueyusedtobe at 12:29pm on August 20, 2009

The entire health care debate is an obvious red herring. The real issue is the continuation of the BUSH/CHENEY WAR. This nation deserves *no* health care until it stops occupying other nations and spending so much of its money on weapons and Halliburton and Blackwater and such. The money for your healthcare was dropped onto women and children in Baghdad seven years ago, and Obama shows no sign of relenting this madness. So - until you official TV liberals get your president to stop this mad war, NO HEALTH CARE FOR YOU.

Posted by Srini Kumar at 4:10am on September 5, 2009