For the second time in a week – a bill to create a single-payer universal healthcare system in the nation’s biggest state received a majority of the vote in the California state Senate. Unfortunately – for the second time – the bill came up two votes shy of getting the type of majority it needed to pass the state Senate – as four Democrats abstained from voting – four Democrats who were more afraid of facing competitors funded by the for-profit health insurance industry than doing the right thing.
Our healthcare system is a national tragedy that leaves 53 million Americans one illness or accident away from financial ruin – and claims the lives of more than 40,000 uninsured Americans every year. We must break the lobbying power of the for-profit health insurance leeches – who have already been outlawed in every other developed nation in the world – and make healthcare a basic human right in America, too.