Health Care is a Utility

Some Goods are Utilities

I was listening to Randi Rhodes and she started talking about health care as a Utility and it hit me,

yes it is!

Almost all the great fortunes in this country come from people creating, developing, buying or stealing control over, goods of such importance that they are utilities! Henry George was defining the criteria for a Utility. His ideas would have powerful effect on the laws of the United States for the next 50 years.

• Healthcare is a public utility. Hospitals, clinics, Emergency response people, are all providing vital utility to us.
• Likewise, Energy, power networks, communications networks, cable companies, satellite systems, etc.... are all utilities.
• Our education system, colleges, high schools, libraries, etc... are all utilities too.

They are so important that they need to be regulated and ruled in the public interest. And for private persons to own and make vast unearned fortunes off of them is piracy. At the same time, those providing the Utility to people, are important, and should be provided for and sustained in gratitude.

This is a simple, but powerful concept. And of course the concept has been a target for privateering recently!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/utility

This ought to be obvious. Windows is a Utility. So are the operating systems on your phone. And so are your phones and laptops. People should make a living from utilities. But not vast fortunes.