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And not just any commodity, but one traded on Wall Street. Companies like UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, Humana, and McKesson boast market capitalizations in the hundreds of billions.

Their business models thrive not on wellness but on volume billing, cost-cutting, and aggressive denial of care. Their stock prices rise when they trim coverage, limit networks, and shift burdens onto patients.

How did we get here?

It didn�����Ƶ�t happen overnight. Over the past 40 years, a confluence of deregulation, privatization, and corporate lobbying transformed the health care landscape. The HMO Act of 1973 opened the door, but it was the 1980s, under Reagan�����Ƶ�s free-market gospel, that solidified the shift. Health care moved from Main Street to the boardroom, from public good to financial instrument.

Hospitals became conglomerates. Nonprofit insurers disappeared or mutated into for-profit giants. Pharmaceutical companies raised prices with impunity, arguing that innovation demanded unregulated markets. And as these industries grew wealthier, they poured hundreds of millions into lobbying and political donations. They rewrote the rules in their favor.

At the same time, the conservative media ecosystem with help from corporate interests launched a parallel assault on language itself. Terms like �����Ƶ�universal health care�����Ƶ� or �����Ƶ�public option�����Ƶ� were branded as socialist schemes. �����Ƶ�Socialism�����Ƶ� became a catch-all scare word, stripped of its historical meaning and repackaged as a threat to American freedom. Even modest proposals, like letting Medicare negotiate drug prices or expanding Medicaid, were painted as steps toward tyranny.

This distortion was deliberate. If Americans were allowed to examine European health systems honestly, they might notice something uncomfortable: they work. In France, Germany, and Sweden, people don�����Ƶ�t fear losing their homes over a medical diagnosis. Costs are lower. Outcomes are better. Bureaucracy is simpler. And no one calls an ambulance worrying whether it�����Ƶ�s in-network.

By contrast, in the United States, one in three GoFundMe campaigns is for medical expenses. Rural hospitals are closing. Life expectancy has declined. And still, we call this freedom.

The recent budget bill will make things worse. It guts funding for community health centers, slashes Medicaid reimbursements, and incentivizes privatization of remaining public services. In states like West Virginia, where large portions of the population depend on public programs for access, the consequences will be severe. Nursing homes will shut down. Doctors will leave. Recruiting health workers will become nearly impossible.

Yet this moment may also spark a turning point. Americans are increasingly aware that our health system doesn�����Ƶ�t serve them. That their premiums rise while CEOs cash out. That wellness is punished and illness monetized. The pandemic exposed the cracks; the current budget may widen them into fissures.

It is not �����Ƶ�socialist�����Ƶ� to say that a nation as wealthy as ours should ensure health care for all. It is democratic. It is humane. And it is long overdue.