Unlike many problems that still need to be solved by humanity, there are the resources available today to provide every person on earth with high-quality cradle-to-grave medical attention. The capitalist profit system itself is the only obstacle in the way of achieving this goal, which would mean greatly extending life expectancy, lowering infant mortality, eliminating disease and death caused by malnutrition, providing preventive medical care for all, and ending deaths from curable diseases.

An example of the possibilities of transforming health care is the Cuban Revolution, which is training doctors and other medical personnel from countries around the globe, and recently announced it would send 4,000 volunteer doctors, needed supplies and drugs, and teachers for 20 medical schools to Africa to help combat the spread of the AIDS epidemic on the continent and to treat those already infected with the virus.

The remedial measures addressed by the "patients' rights" legislation are a typical example of patchwork reforms by a capitalist government that on the surface soften some of the worst excesses of the profit drive but do nothing to change the fundamental situation. Health care in the United States is, like the manufacture of cars or steel, a capitalist industry whose goal is not to cure people but to make money for a handful, despite the best efforts of many working people employed in hospitals and other medical facilities. There is no getting around the fact that this is a class question. Capitalists and their wealthy administrators don't need patients' rights legislation. They are not enrolled in HMOs. They get the medical attention they need, when they need it.

Cutbacks in medical plans, curtailing access to medicines and needed procedures, attacks on the working conditions and wages of nurses and other health-care workers are rife throughout the medical system. If they have some kind of medical coverage, workers and farmers are confronted with a maze of bureaucratic obstacles that are simply designed to cut costs and to limit access to medical care. Of course, the bipartisan legislation doesn't say a word about making medical facilities in the United States available to those without insurance or to the tens of millions around the world who need these services.

While the issue of whether health-care "providers" can be sued is a contentious one in Congress and among layers of the super-wealthy U.S. ruling class, the idea that a worker or farmer has to launch a lawsuit just to get needed medical attention speaks volumes about the class character of access to health care in capitalist America. That there would be any curtailment of the ability to sue if needed is an added outrage.

One reason why working people are confronted with this situation is that for decades the top officials of the unions have not fought for medical care as part of a federally funded and guaranteed entitlement for all. Nor have these officials ever dreamed of putting a capitalist industry at the service of all humanity, including those outside the borders of the United States. Rather, they have approached medical coverage as a "benefit" to be negotiated with individual companies, if at all. This lets the Democrats and Republicans off the hook and gives them cover to pretend that their so-called patients' rights legislation has something to do with changing the health-care system.

This legislation also opens the door to probes against a woman's right to abortion, such as the various measures to start defining a fetus as a person that are included in the draft legislation and in a regulatory revision of the Children's Health Insurance Program. The government is offering working women the ability to be covered by this program when they are pregnant in exchange for allowing the government to define a fetus as a "child" under the law. The cynical move, which is a slap in the face to women on all counts, should be rejected.

The labor movement and all supporters of women's rights can instead make vigorous demands that all pregnant women be immediately provided the medical attention and care they need.
 
 
Related article:
Read the fine print on 'patients' rights' bill  
 
 
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