That won't work.

"THAT WON'T WORK"
If you have ever said that about anything, and there is plenty our there that that can be said about, but if you have ever said that about, say, Universal Healthcare, or free college education or clean energy, then you need to ask yourself three questions.
1. Who told me that will never work.
2. Why do I believe that will never work.
3. Why are all three things occurring successfully in other countries.

Tough questions.

We have all said things won't work that did.

My grandfather believed so strongly that men going to the moon would not and could not happen that he hooked it to his belief in God.  He died before we made it to the moon, so no crisis of faith there.
Gave his children pause, though.

Leonardo DaVinci drew many things that would never work, like helicopters and such.
The Telegraph, Telephone and Television were all three pipedreams at one time.
Women as voting, thinking, productive (not talking babies here) members of society was at one time an absolutely ridiculous set of ideas.
A non-white, non-male ruler has been a "won't work" repeatedly, but has now happened successfully all over the world---repeatedly.
Educating poor people, laborers children, farmers children, girls, etc., etc., etc., has been seen as pure foolishness.

So, right now, if you are calling the idea of everyone having equal access to healthcare something that won't work---why?  Why can't we do what those other countries are doing.

These green countries have done it. Some for over 70 years.  Besides ourselves, we are in the company of some of the poorest, most unstable, least safe countries in the world.

Why can't we join the free world on Healthcare.

Next is free public college education.  

Once upon a time, there was no public education at any level.  The idea of letting everyone spend time learning to read and write and do arithmetic was ridiculous.  Most of the people would never be anything but general laborers, farm hands, maids, and cooks, and blacksmiths and barrel makers.  No one really wanted to take those children out of the workforce, and yes, they were working by 7, maybe at the family business, maybe in the coal mine or on the land owners farm or in town for the wealthy households providing maid service and livery service and go-fer service.  Why teach them to read and write and do arithmetic.

But we did, and it helped many people NOT have to spend their lives in menial jobs that wore them down and bored them mentally and convinced them life was hopeless.  Don't get me wrong.  There are people that love service work.  They feel fulfilled when they are making someone's life run smoothly and look beautiful.  But, if you can't choose not to live that life, can anyone say you DID choose to live that life?  

Everyone wants choices, they want to dream and not have those dreams crushed by accident of birth.

For a lot of people, the choice of college is never seen as an option, they are too busy trying to survive childhood, and know that no one can pay for their college.  But, if they knew they could go if they just made the grades????  How many lives would that change.  How many hopeless poor kids would dream bigger and work harder in school.  In cities with free community college to students from that city, enrollment increases by over 10%.  It's not Scandanavia.  Students still need some source of funds for living while they are in school and there is no telling how many can't go due to needing to work fulltime to find a place to live and eat.  I do know that our minimum wage jobs are not going to help students out much.  And poor parents can't always afford to keep feeding and housing children after high school graduation.  It may take several generations to stop the "crab in a bucket" mentality of poor parents that couldn't go to college, that now don't see themselves as needing to help their own children in college when they are still struggling daily to survive.

The following is a table of college affordability rankings by country.  It is not a world map.  But we are far from the top.  Our income inequality makes this a very tough price for our poor to lower middle class.

Last thing, but far from least, is clean energy.
This one really freaks me out a little.
We, especially in Oil-rich states like mine, but also in those with lots of coal mines, are so loyal to fossil fuels we can't even consider doing something better.  We call Natural gas "clean" because it is a clear gas, but the air contamination of burning it is little if any better than oil or coal.  And the possibility of leaks; of gas, of pipelines, of coal ash disposal sites, is huge.

I realize that tobacco farmers denied smoking was bad for people, self-preservation and all, but denial will never make fossil fuels clean anymore than denial will prevent cancer and heart disease.

We know how to eliminate most of this, how to change to clean energy that will be cheaper---and there in lies the problem.  Cheaper is not the energy folks goal.  Profit is and always has been the goal.

Dirty energy is big money.
Expensive school is also big money.
Private healthcare is big money.

People enjoying the benefits of having those three industries stay full of money, full of profit, expensive, will never, ever say, we can do this better, cheaper, faster.

And as long as their money is lobbying our lawmakers and supporting those superpacs, they will keep staying fat and inefficient while not benefiting those of us that need them most.

Maybe its time to change "that won't work" to "Let's do this for us all".
It's actually past time.