Single Payer Unifies Us Through Social Solidarity

The citizens of all other democratic nations share our view
that individual freedom and rights must be protected at all costs. They also
share the view that we as a society should join together for the common good.
Our governments serve us well when they provide services such as police and
fire protection, public education, transportation infrastructure improvements,
national defense, disaster management, maintenance of our public lands and
parks, and endless other functions that we have come to expect from our
government.

Almost none of us believe that an individual should be allowed to
suffer or die merely because of the lack of the ability of that individual to
pay for the health care needed. It has been said that only the citizens of the
United States lack the social solidarity to ensure that everyone has affordable
access to the health care needed. That is not true. We do want everyone to have
that care. But we do have to set aside the rhetoric of ideology and move on to
the application of sound policy science. Individual freedom and social
solidarity are not mutually exclusive extremes of a linear polarity. Freedom
and solidarity joined together are an amalgamation of forces that fuel the
flames of democracy.