The Missed Opportunity Costs of Deferring Real Healthcare Reform

Some people argue with some level of seeming complacency that an expanded Medicare for all or single payer program in the US is inevitable. I'm not sure this is the case -- all kinds of unpredictable things could happen to make things that seem inevitable not happen and for US society to deteriorate even more than it has. But if it were true, it totally ignores (to the extent that it is complacent) the costs involved. There are the obvious costs in terms of the lives lost from lack of proper medical attention until we do get a decent system. There's also the costs of choices people will make in terms of not following their hearts and staying in demoralizing jobs for security of the health insurance. And there's the costs of the work involved in making this an ultimate reality -- activism that could instead be put into stopping war, avoiding environmental disaster and problems that we are not even aware of now -- problems that might make what seems inevitable not so inevitable.

Who can say what the costs are of this dream deferred -- and the costs of the dreams that delay defers.