Is Trump Just Another Candidate?

You know you’re in an election year when the GOP starts ramping up their attack on the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare (ACA) which has become yet another example of how those goddamn Democrats have been trying to turn America into a Communist state since they rammed through social security in 1935.

You should know, incidentally, that the last GOP-backed challenge to the Social Security Act died in 1949. But I suspect that the opposition to the ACA may continue for even longer, if only because social security covers everyone, whereas the ACA is primarily designed to make it easier for the pauvres to get medical care.

The United States happens to be the only industrialized country where the medical system is primarily a for-profit enterprise and is basically delivered to private payers whose out-of-pocket expenditures are covered by insurance programs which are also part of the for-profit environment.

The insurance plans which give patients access to medical care are usually tied to employment, but there happen to be a lot of Americans who, for reasons of age, disability, social situations, and other factors, happen not to hold jobs. Or maybe they work for companies which don’t provide health insurance, particularly low-paying, non-union jobs in various service sectors like fast foods.