Alternatives Exist!The COVID-19 pharmacare pay-the-rich programs, worth billions of dollars and resulting in fortunes for certain individuals in control and ownership of Big Pharma, prove that any form of pharmacare must be all-sided or it will inevitably become yet another corrupt pay-the-rich scheme for privileged global oligarchs cynically using a necessary social program as cover. To endure and be effective and not be used to strengthen the oligarchs of Big Pharma, pharmacare must encompass the development, research, production and delivery of pharmaceuticals with the aim to serve the people, economy and society and not the global rich. This requires human-centred public enterprises to organize the necessary research, and develop, produce and deliver pharmaceuticals to the people without any aspect being infected with the imperialist aim of maximum private profit.
The pandemic proves that to sustain the investments necessary for a proper health care system, including pharmacare and seniors' care, the value produced in the form of healthy workers has to be realized in a proper exchange within the economy. All big corporations in the economy of a certain size must pay for this value, which in fact they require for their existence. These large corporations must be held responsible to realize (pay for) the value evident in healthy workers and the capacity to work they bring to the health care system and the overall economy. Healthy and educated workers are the essential human factor to produce new value, without which the economy and society would collapse. The imperialist oligarchs in control refuse to admit this self-evident truth, and will continue to do so unless deprived of their ability to deprive the working people of what belongs to the people by right. The pandemic is further exposing how untenable this situation has become and that it can only be resolved by establishing human-centred public enterprises capable of research and development and delivery of pharmaceuticals needed by the people. This modern approach would eliminate the making of maximum private profit for remedies and vaccines, which is now blocking the mass distribution of vaccines to deal with COVID-19. As long as this is in the hands of the imperialist cartels the world cannot be made safe. Globalization has taken place at lightning speed to serve the cartels and their mania for maximum profit. In doing so they are incapable of dealing with the consequences of their actions. The fight for lives is the fight for rights and this is the alternative to what the governments in the service of the rich are doing with their pay-the-rich schemes and anti-social offensive.
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A true pharmacare
program and health care system generally are
required not only for individuals but for the
economy and society to function and develop. The
pandemic shows how crucial it has become to have
social conditions that produce and defend a
healthy population. If not, as has been
revealed, parts of the economy and even the
whole can grind to a halt. For workers to be
readily available to work, the health of the
people amidst a universal free health care
system must be built and maintained.