Colin Powell Calls For Universal Health Care In U.S.

From The Puget Sound Business Journal:

Former Secretary of State and longtime Republican Colin Powell is calling for a universal health care solution in the U.S.

“We are a wealthy enough country with the capacity to make sure that every one of our fellow citizens has access to quality health care,” he said Thursday at a Seattle fundraiser for prostate cancer. “(Let’s show) the rest of the world what our democratic system is all about and how we take care of all of our citizens."

...

“I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life,” Powell said. “And I don’t see why we can’t do what Europe is doing, what Canada is doing, what Korea is doing, what all these other places are doing.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/...

General Powell is himself a prostate cancer survivor, and his wife, Alma, recently had 3 aneurisms as well as arterial blockage. Both he and his wife received immediate, successful treatment, and, he said in his remarks, they never had to worry about paying their medical bills. This was thanks to the insurance available to him and his family as a retired military commander.

I am confident the Affordable Care Act will eventually lead to the kind of system Powell is describing.

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Giving the mainstream Republican rebuttal to Mr. Powell is Tea Party co-founder...

  This season I am always reminded Charles Dickens' classic tale A Christmas Carol. Within the character Scrooge we find bitterness, avarice, cruelty...but also a notion that in those hearts that harbor those tendencies and qualities we may yet find another: Hope.

      And yet...in rereading it again this year to my boys, we found another portion of this story that is overlooked too often. I hear many of my fellow liberals quoting the famous lines of Scrooge to the men seeking a charitable donation at the beginning of the story:

       

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?"  demanded Scrooge.  "Are they still in operation?"

"They are.  Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?"  said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh!  I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge.  "I'm very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.  We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.  What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge.  "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.  I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry.  I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.  Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that."

      When Jacob Marley first appears before Scrooge, rattling his chains and recounting his horrific experience in purgatory, Scrooge begins a subtle attempt to avenge Marley of his sins--and himself in the bargain:

       

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.  "Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said "I suffer most.  Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!  Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"

Misers are miserable because miserliness is misery.

misery (n.) 

late 14c., "condition of external unhappiness," from Old French misere "miserable situation, misfortune, distress" (12c.), from Latin miseria "wretchedness," from miser (see miser). Meaning "condition of one in great sorrow or mental distress" is from 1530s. Meaning "bodily pain" is 1825, American English.