Government shutdowns aren\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
Yes, Affordable Care Act subsidies<\/a> currently help many families in the short run, but they don\u2019t fix the broken system\u2019s core instability. In fact, they mask and sustain it. Billions in taxpayer <\/b>dollars are propping up private insurers. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n Oregon isn\u2019t waiting. Voters passed Measure 111<\/a> in 2022, declaring health care a constitutional right. The Legislature then established the Universal Health Plan Governance Board<\/a> to design a system that guarantees coverage for every resident, no matter their job, income or immigration status.<\/p>\n Cutting administrative waste while preserving patient choice, it will create the first comprehensive state universal health system in the nation. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Valdez G. Bravo and Antonio Germann <\/p>\n Bravo and Germann are president and vice president, respectively, of Health Care for All Oregon<\/a><\/p>\n To read more letters to the editor, go to oregonlive.com\/opinion<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government shutdowns aren\u2019t just about budgets. They highlight the instability of two systems: a Congress that can grind…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":261702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-392591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115582957282993196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}