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Four years ago, Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., and her much older Socialist ally in the Senate, Ed Markey, D-Mass., sent shockwaves by introducing a sweeping proposal for a Green New Deal.
The Green New Deal is one of the most socialist bills ever devised in Congress. Among other things, it would create massive new spending programs, eliminate “pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible,” transform all U.S. manufacturing and transportation, and upgrade “all existing buildings in the United States.”
The Green New Deal would also make substantial changes to America’s sprawling agricultural industry, create a job guarantee, and provide all people with government-run health care, “economic security,” healthy food, and “access to nature.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Unsurprisingly, the Green New Deal is probably the most expensive piece of legislation proposed to date. The American Action Forum estimates that the final price tag could reach $94.4 trillion.
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The socialist Green New Deal failed spectacularly when it was brought before the Senate as a non-binding resolution in 2019. Despite the support of numerous senior members of Congress, including Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Harris, the measure failed to get a single vote in the Senate.
However, the previous failures of the Green New Deal have not deterred the most socialist wing of the Democratic Party. AOC and Markey announced in late April that they are reintroducing the Green New Deal in both the House and Senate.
Rep. Ro Khanna speaks at a House committee hearing, February 28, 2023, at the Capitol. (Office of Rep. Ro Khanna)
Even more notably, Markey also announced that he and far-left Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., have introduced an add-on to the original Green New Deal called the “Green New Deal for Health”.
According to a press release from Markey’s office, the Green New Deal for Health “boldly reimagines a healthcare system prepared and empowered to protect the health and well-being of our employees, our communities and our planet.”
The proposal encompasses numerous socialist and progressive policies, including a $130 billion investment in community health centers, $100 billion in new government grants to improve the “climate resilience and disaster response efforts” of medical facilities, and numerous new climate change regulations designed to create a “green medical supply chain.”
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But perhaps the most important and far-reaching reform offered by the Green New Deal for Health is one that has received virtually no media attention. The Green New Deal for Health would establish a new office within the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity.
The proposed Climate Change and Health Equity Office would oversee the facilitation of “a robust, federal response to the impact of climate change on the health of the American people and the health care system.”
The Climate Change and Health Equity Office would also be tasked with compiling government reports that demonstrate the “physical, mental and behavioral health impacts of climate change,” developing tools to track carbon dioxide emissions and leading “efforts to reduce the carbon footprint.” “. of the healthcare sector.
Or more simply, the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity would be responsible for injecting far-left, costly climate policies throughout the U.S. health care system, one of America’s largest employers. This would drive up already skyrocketing health costs, jeopardize thousands of jobs and raise taxes, making it harder for working-class Americans to pay for the treatments they need.
The Office of Climate Change and Health Equity would also “coordinate federal efforts to deploy climate-aware human services and direct services to support and protect populations composed of individuals disproportionately affected by climate change.” This may sound like a good idea to some, but the details of the legislation show that this provision would cause federal health efforts to favor some demographics over others.
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Another section of Markey and Khanna’s bill defines “individuals disproportionately affected by climate change” by a laundry list of absurd social justice criteria, including Americans “under age 5 or over age 65,” “in the childbearing age, “gender minority status”, “family income”, pre-existing health problems, “immigration status”, “race and ethnicity”, and “experience of racial prejudice”. (To qualify under the provision, an American must fall into two or more of the categories.)
Climate Envoy John Kerry and Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren applaud during President Biden’s speech on climate in Somerset, Massachusetts, on July 20, 2022. (David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
All told, only a fraction of Americans — mostly healthy heterosexual white males over age 5 but under age 66 — would likely be considered exempt from the special benefits granted to those lucky enough to be labeled “individuals disproportionately affected by climate”. change.”
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It’s hard to imagine anyone could have made policy proposals weirder than the original version of the Green New Deal proposed in 2019, but the Green New Deal for Health has somehow managed to make that remarkable achieve performance.
Fortunately, neither the Green New Deal nor the Green New Deal for Health have any hope of being passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives this year or next. But the persistence of the far left to devise these radical schemes should be an important reminder of what could soon be upon us if Americans do not continue to push back against the rise of socialism in the United States, especially in the halls of Congress.
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Justin Haskins is the director of The Heartland Institute’s Socialism Research Center and a New York Times best-selling author.
