I’ve been listening to/watching a couple political podcasts, Countdown and Rachel Maddow, on my way to and from work every day for a while now. It helps me keep up with everything in a fairly efficient and effective way.

Lately, the issue being discussed in the political world that has piqued my interest has been healthcare reform. What boggles my mind is how long healthcare reform has been an active issue in Congress. It’s not a few months or even a few years. Try a few decades.

Last night’s Maddow show had a segment with video clips of recorded political speeches made by Bill Clinton in 1993, Ted Kennedy in 1978, and President Truman in 1948. That’s at least 61 years that this has been an issue in this country, and currently, certain members of Congress are arguing that healthcare reform legislation is being rushed through Congress.

It’s absurd that healthcare is considered anything less than a right in this country, given the vast material and human resources available. It’s unconscionable that we would deny healthcare to people simply for being poor, unemployed, or just too sick. These are exactly the people we should be providing healthcare to, and in the same manner that the government became the employer of last resort during the Great Depression and then later a primary employer in the nation, the government should formally become the insurer of last resort now, with the aim of also becoming a competitor in the insurance industry.

It’s naive to think that the government isn’t already the insurer of last resort for a significant number of people — the government already supports millions of people through Medicare and Medicaid, as well as through payments to hospitals that treat people who are uninsured. It’s an incidental and informal insurance arrangement, and it is inefficient and expensive for a number of reasons. To believe that it is fine and does not need to change, or that it should only be changed more slowly than it already has is foolish at best.