How Foreclosures, Bankruptcies & Healthcare Are Tied Together
Last week we wrote about bankruptcies and the reality that 2009 was a banner year for financial failure — 1.5 million bankruptcies, up 32 percent from 2008.
Interestingly enough, as provisions of the newly-minted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act go into effect we are likely to see both fewer bankruptcies and fewer foreclosures. Why? Because people who can’t pay their medical bills can’t pay their mortgages.
It’s remarkable that in the U.S. if you get sick you can lose your home and your savings. The new legislation should greatly broaden the availability of healthcare for most and thus reduce the financial distress of disease, illness and accidents.
Some will scream from their bunkers that the new legislation is “socialism,” but this is the same argument made when Social Security was passed. Today you can’t find a lawmaker willing to introduce legislation to get rid of Social Security. If people were seriously against “socialism” you’d think they would want to do away with VA benefits and Medicare but magically that doesn’t seem to be on the agenda.
The reality is that we don’t have a purely capitalist country. We have what’s described as a mixed economy, taking the best from whatever system and approach makes the most sense.
Others are incensed about the cost of widespread health insurance. These same people were utterly silent about the eight years of Bush/Cheney administration when the federal deficit increased by $4.35 trillion. And certainly these folks have had nothing to say about the money and human cost of the Iraq war, a war that was contrived and unnecessary.
You can bet with absolute certainty that 20 years from now we will have real national healthcase, something better than the bill just passed — and that no elected official will favor its repeal.
The bottom line is that in 2008 the country overwhelmingly rejected the politics of the extreme right, politics which virtually bankrupted the country and policies for which we are still paying. Now the Obama Administration has delivered at least some of what was promised in the way of healthcare. Next, what about banks and credit cards? Wall Street? Immigration?
Stay Tuned.
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