Gen. Colin Powell calls for universal health care in the U.S.
By Valerie Bauman
Puget Sound Business Journal, December 5, 2013
Former Secretary of State and longtime Republican Colin Powell is calling for a universal health care solution in the U.S.
“We are a wealthy enough country with the capacity to make sure that every one of our fellow citizens has access to quality health care,” he said Thursday at a Seattle fundraiser for prostate cancer. “(Let’s show) the rest of the world what our democratic system is all about and how we take care of all of our citizens.”
The retired four-star general, a prostate cancer survivor, spoke at the Prostate Cancer Survivors Celebration Breakfast, organized by UW Medicine and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Powell took the opportunity to share some of his own experiences and to publicly call for a health care solution similar to those in Canada, Japan and other countries that have a universal, single-payer system.
“I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life,” Powell said. “And I don’t see why we can’t do what Europe is doing, what Canada is doing, what Korea is doing, what all these other places are doing.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/health-care-inc/2013/12/colin-powell-calls-for-universal.html?page=all
Comment:
By Don McCanne, M.D. Colin Powell’s is a very welcome voice in the groundswell of support for single payer. As people better understand single payer, that support will grow until we reach a threshold where even Congress will join in.
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