Bus Tickets are $20. Contact K at 802 318 6288 or email yolandalutefisk@gmail.com
This week, ISO is discussing a socialist perspective on health care. Through reading and discussion, we seek to answer the questions:
The following readings will provide ideas that help answer these questions! Two of them everyone coming to the meeting should definitely check out. The other two are absolutely amazing and I highly recommend, however, given that some people have busier schedules than others, we wanted to limit the required readings to something doable for all. However definitely read them if you have time! Also, all of the articles listed below are in an attached word document, all of them are also online, and one of them is in the Where We Stand Packet that some of you may have picked up at our kickoff meeting.
The discussion on healthcare will cover the first half of the meeting, and for the second half we will organize ISO outreach and publicity for the National Equality March.
Here are the readings:
Why the free market can't cure health care
http://socialistworker.org/2009/09/03/market-cant-cure-health-care
A really good up to date analysis on the current proposals and how they try to continue the free market idiocy that has dominated American capitalism for the last 30 years.
A TOOL FOR PRESERVING CLASS RULE
http://socialistworker.org/2008/03/07/tool-preserving-class-rule
Why don’t we have a decent healthcare system already if so many Americans are for it? This article explains that the government under capitalism inherently serves the capitalists. That is, not only are both the Democrats and Republicans beholden to big pharma and insurance companies, but this is actually built into capitalism. This means that as we fight for single-payer, we are not only fighting the capitalist industries that profit off of privatized healthcare, but we ultimately must also fight for ending capitalism altogether. Capitalism, even with single-payer, will constantly try to erode every reform we win, from better wages, to single-payer, because it is based on profit. Only a socialist society run democratically by and for all will permanently hold the people’s health in its top interest.
Also highly recommended:
National health care: a dream deferred
By NANCY WELCH
http://www.isreview.org/issues/56/feat-healthwealth.shtml
What will it actually take to win single-payer healthcare? This article tells the history of healthcare in the US, and how American workers fought hard for a national healthcare system in the 1930’s, but were betrayed by the New Deal Democrats. Renewed struggle in the 1960’s won Medicare and Medicaid, but during the 1970’s the government also allowed the growth of a private medical-industrial complex, which today is a monster that will be hard to overthrow. Welch ends the article with the question, will the US need a national labor party with a militant and mobilized working-class behind it to win single-payer?
When health care is a right
By Helen Scott
http://socialistworker.org/2009/09/02/when-health-care-is-a-right
Scott, who lives in the United States, but who’s mother lives in the UK, describes how the UK’s national system works. This recentSocialist Worker article beautifully dispels the right-wing myths about government-run healthcare.
7:30pm
September 10, 2009
Music room of Willard Straight Hall, Cornell Campus
The word “socialism” has returned to the mainstream of American political debate.
But there are widespread misconceptions about what socialism is—and what it isn’t. Republicans fret that the U.S. is fast becoming a socialist country—with government spending on bank bailouts and Barack Obama’s proposed health care reform.
But the genuine tradition of “socialism from below” means something more than state intervention in the economy. Socialism is really about the struggle to oppose discrimination in all its forms and to put the needs of working people before corporate profits.
Come to this meeting to discuss the idea of socialism—and socialist strategies for changing the world.
For rides from downtown/IC or more information about the, contact Kay at YolandaLutefisk@gmail.com
