>mbs: nonsense. universalization of health care would bring coverage
>previously lacking precisely to the poor, more than anyone else.
What is the leading cause of death among drug addicted poor people? AIDS must be at least very near the top, and dirty needles must be the leading mechanism for transmission. Universalisation of health care would indeed help this population deal with the symptoms of AIDS, not its contraction. You are willing to write off this subpopulation. Horrifying and horrible.
mBS on patents:
>The Gov could still finance medical aid or permit foreign licensing in
>special cases.
Well then are you willing to build this into your health care proposal.
>mbs: this is philosophy, not politics.
Politics means here for the labor movement to dig deep roots in society by proving that the impediments it must remove to liberate itself promise the emancipation of society as a whole. That is the attack on private property, profit and the commodification of human needs are in the universal interest, not simply the selfish and narrow interest of labor. You would take away this political weapon of labor. And for what? The absolutely stupid idea that if labor agrees to your watered down health care proposal the Democratic Party would be willing to champion it and on that basis win enough seats in the Congress to put it through. I have news for you Max: the Democrats will not push even your watered down 'universal' health care proposal. You are asking for concessions and silences for nothing in return. You try to discipline labor to accept the boundaries that narrow unthinking prejudice establishes and prevent labor from developing that the radical, human and universal agenda by the articulation of which it will emerge as the class in which by embodying universal reason it enjoys the greatest political advantage of all.
>mbs: I note the phrase "must aid every social and political movement
>tending in that direction . . . " and thank you for the citation.
Which means the support of those fighting for free needles to save that expendable class of human beings, free access to abortion to enable women's emancipation, the non commodification of drugs to save thousands of lives.
Yours, Rakesh