Government shutdowns aren’t just about budgets. They highlight the instability of two systems: a Congress that can grind to a halt and a health care system so fragile that millions can lose access to essential care.
Yes, Affordable Care Act subsidies currently help many families in the short run, but they don’t fix the broken system’s core instability. In fact, they mask and sustain it. Billions in taxpayer dollars are propping up private insurers.
Publicly-funded universal health care is the answer. It is both morally just and structurally stabilizing. It cuts the middlemen out of being gatekeepers and stops treating health care as a profit driven commodity.
Oregon isn’t waiting. Voters passed Measure 111 in 2022, declaring health care a constitutional right. The Legislature then established the Universal Health Plan Governance Board to design a system that guarantees coverage for every resident, no matter their job, income or immigration status.
Cutting administrative waste while preserving patient choice, it will create the first comprehensive state universal health system in the nation.
Crisis can be a catalyst. Other major social reforms – voting rights, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – were created in times of instability and public frustration.
Universal health care can end the affordability crisis millions experience daily, separating access to care from employment, family upheaval and partisan warfare. If Washington is serious about restoring faith in democracy, it must stop treating health care as a bargaining chip and start treating it as a guarantee. Americans deserve a system that never shuts down.
Valdez G. Bravo and Antonio Germann
Bravo and Germann are president and vice president, respectively, of Health Care for All Oregon
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