"Socialist" Health Care?

"I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are not like your Christ." -Mohandas Gandhi

I find the extreme rhetoric regarding health care reform deeply disturbing. As a nation, we have learned nothing. Our republic has operated under a socialist system since taxes were first levied. No one turns down Social Security or fails to sign up for Medicare. Public libraries are still valued, and road maintenance is considered an absolute necessity. Yes, we unquestioningly redistribute wealth every day; yet, the far right uses words like "socialist" as epithets rather than offer reasonable solutions to real problems.


An old friend recently commented on an article I shared about Canadian health care saying, "Remember Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged? This is nothing more than pure socialism!" He went on to remind me that there was no health insurance prior to WWII. I know this person makes use of a very generous health care plan offered through his employer. I know that he enjoys the public benefits that we share through redistributed taxes. Did he think about what he was saying? Does he know most people prior to WWII faced and often died from dread diseases such as polio, typhoid, diphtheria, measles, and many others? Does he remember that life expectancy was much shorter for both men and women? Does this father of several children shepherded through careful obstetric screenings and infant care understand that infant and maternal mortality was a scary reality?

I wish my friend would calm down and look at the facts, then consider what we can do to bridge a considerable gap that has developed in health care over the last 20 years.

First of all, when his children are grown and perhaps even graduate college, they may find it very hard to find jobs with employers that even offer health care as a benefit. Many employers now only hire part-time or contract workers so they don't incur that expense. For young people paying off student loans, the extra cost of private insurance or even riders is staggering.

The working poor, likewise, are not the lazy good-for-nothings that many would make them out to be. They are conscientious folks who cannot find employment in a job that offers even modest or shared-expense health care. As with the younger generation mentioned above, the extra dollars demanded for such insurance is often simply unaffordable. They must choose between food, heat, shelter or health insurance. The elderly already clearly understand this.

I know and have known many without such coverage. They are good, honest citizens who work hard and stay out of trouble. I knew one woman, in particular, who died in my presence of a massive heart attack because her medicine cost so much. She chose to risk going without.

There are excesses that can be rooted out and controlled that will go a long way toward ensuring modest care for all citizens of the U.S. Tort reform is a big step toward solving this problem. Lawyers will not like it, and are actively lobbying against it, but doctors need to be able to practice medicine non-defensively. Their liability insurance contributes to high costs, as well as the myriad of unnecessary, very expensive tests they order just to be safe (such as multiple prenatal Ultrasounds). Currently my husband and I have THREE policies, because he had one at his place of work, I have one at my place of work (because they wouldn't allow me into the retirement plan without it - "to keep their numbers up") and now Medicare. This is silly. I should have been able to opt-out of my plan at the very beginning as long as I could demonstrate having adequate coverage. I would love to "give" one of our plans to a hard-working young person who really needs it.

A society is only as great as its treatment of the least among them. Our society contains a large faction that is simply mean, selfish, and blind to realities.

Of course, we could just let everyone who can't afford insurance die in the streets. But, somebody would have to pay for the mess - through taxes?