Why universal health care should be run by the government in simple language.

The administrative costs of Medicare are only about 2% to 3%, and Social Security has, since 1989, been administered for less than 1% annually (even SSD is run for only around 2%), so this myth of government wastefulness in administration is just that.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich was on the O'Reilly Factor this past week and was telling Laura Ingraham (who was standing in for Bill) that, although he voted for ObamaCare, and although it's a solid step in the right direction, he nonetheless lamented that the American people could have had single payer universal Medicare, with no co-pays, no out of pockets, full prescription coverage, full dental, full mental health coverage & etc. for LESS cost.

That's the problem with allowing a for-profit health care industry. People decry single payer as 'communism', but We the People have every right to relegate corporations who deal in health insurance to the sidelines, or to bar them entirely if they are not promoting the general welfare of the nation, just as American cities have every right to (and often do) form their own utility or other companies. Kucinich knows a thing or two about that, too, having been mayor of Cleveland in the 1970s, and having successfully defended its citizens' lower-cost public power company (then 'Muny Light') from private interests.

We've heard a lot this week about the Commerce Clause and the Taxing and Spending Clause, but we seem to have forgotten the General Welfare Clause, which lies at the heart of it: Private health insurance corporations serve the nation at its citizens' pleasure, in times of good behavior. When they become repugnant or intolerable to the general welfare, they may be restrained or abolished. This idea that these artificial entities have some 'inalienable right' to 'earn a living' (this is what we actually hear, constantly) is just a meme people have been programmed to repeat. Notwithstanding that I (and congressmen like Kucinich) think single payer cheaper, in choosing the best course our citizens' health should be our primary concern; costs secondary, and adhering to some 'purist' political philosophy way, way, way down the list.