My essay on health care

In anticipation of being called a Communist I will start by saying: Communism and Socialism are entirely different political systems, that's why there are two different words. The United States of America has been a socialist country since before any of us were born. at the latest we adopted socialism in the 1930s with the creation of Social Security Retirement and Disability. At the earliest we adopted socialism with the creation of FREE PUBLIC schools and libraries shortly after the Revolution. What were those commie founding founders thinking! There will always be room for improvement with any government program but I rather like the idea of every kid in America getting to go to school regardless of whether their family pays for it themselves or not and I was glad that my dad got to stay in his own home and had decent enough medical care at the end of his life even if paying into Social Security isn't the funnest thing I can think of.

That's the whole idea behind living as a part of a civilized society rather than in a cabin in Idaho with your pet rock. If want to rid America of every vestige of socialism then we would need to privatize the police and fire departments and garbage collection too - how dare I have to subsidize my neighbor's garbage collection, he always has twice as much out there as I do and yet he pays the same as everyone else on the street. I better start putting my money aside so I can afford to pay the bill when there is an emergency and I need to call the police or the fire department because without socialism it's going to have to be a pay as you go system there as well.

We are 40+ years behind EVERY other "first world" country in providing universal health care, and it's finally beginning to catch up to us. Our patchwork health care system of employer based and privately purchased health insurance is now the most expensive per citizen in the world and yet we are always number 10 - 30 or worse in objective studies of the level and of health care received. That's not a very efficient use of our GDP or a good return on investment per dollar. One of the many reasons the American auto industry is lagging behind those of Japan and Germany is that in Germany and Japan the auto manufacturers do not have health care benefits to work into the cost of their final product as all of their employees are already covered. If you look at the financial spreadsheets of any American corporation you will find that health care benefits are one of the largest expense items listed. We are forcing our own industries to compete against those of other nations on a completely un-level playing field due to the fact that our companies have this huge expense and other nation's companies do not.

And finally it's just a matter of basic humanity. Not offering basic health services to every American regardless of their financial success or abilities is simply the human and civilized thing to do at this point when people's lives often depend on access to the health system just as much as their lives might have depended on access to food and water in the past. If you would read the proposals you would see that different options are being offered and our informed response to the proposals on hand is our last chance to influence the outcome of the end product that will be passed. The option most likely to pass is a hybrid of employer/private insurance which you are free to keep if you really like it and a government option. The existing health insurance industry has put out two contradictory messages to fight any change - A: government health insurance will be so awful no one would want it and B: government health insurance will be so popular that private insurance can't possibly compete in the open market. If A is true then the insurance companies have nothing to worry about. If B is true then the insurance industry loses out and we the people win. I don't see how either scenario would spell the end of the end of the world.

(thanks to Misty for the inspiration to write these thoughts down.)