Awesome health care column from a guy who usually does not write about national politics

Abolitionists fought for decades to end slavery in the South, but were fiercely opposed by strong commercial interests who tried to preserve the slave labor foundation of the South's agrarian economy.

On July 29, 1835, a mob of 300 citizens stormed a post office in Charleston, S.C., to seize and burn abolitionist literature. Another 28 years would pass before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and 99 more years until James Meredith was the first black student to enter the University of Mississippi in 1962.

It's mind-boggling, with hindsight, to imagine why it took so long for America to end slavery and institutional segregation, when other advanced societies had done so generations before.

But maybe not so mind-boggling after all.

Today we have another socioeconomic issue where the United States lags all other modern nations.

Universal health care.

Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Brazil, Britain and just about every other country whose name you can spell provide all of their citizens with basic medical care, via mostly government-funded programs. But not us.