The public option is Socialized Medicine!!
Run for your lives!!!"
Well - yeah, the public option is a form of socialized medicine.
So what?
As I've explained before, every other developed country in the world has some form of government-subsidized universal healthcare system - some of 'em truly "socialized medicine" (e.g., the U.K.), some of 'em "single payer" systems (e.g., Canada), some of 'em mandatory, well-regulated private systems (e.g., Switzerland).
All of 'em provide better access and better outcomes at less cost than the U.S.! - ALL OF 'EM!!!
From the late 19th century on, conservative politicians have been screaming,
"Socialism! - Bad, EVIL!!!"at every turn on the road to progress.
Child-labor laws? - Socialism!What's wrong with socialism?
The Pure Food and Drug Act? - Socialism!
Labor Unions? - Socialism!
Workplace safety and OSHA? - Socialism!
Social Security? - Socialism!
Medicare? - Socialism!
Me? I'm all for my government protecting me from the excesses of pure, unbridled capitalism.
Pure, unbridled capitalism in the 19th century gave us child laborers losing fingers and arms working at industrial looms.
Pure, unbridled capitalism in the early 20th century gave us tinctures of opium and 25% alcohol nostrums for our 'health'.
Pure, unbridled capitalism in 1911 gave us the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire - the largest industrial accident in the history of New York City, causing the death of 146 garment workers who either died from the fire or jumped to their deaths.
(No - OSHA was still 60 years in the future. You know, OSHA - that Socialist plot to protect the health and safety of American workers, signed into law in 1970 by that ultra-leftist, commie, pinko fellow-traveler, Richard M. Nixon!)
Pure, unbridled capitalism brought us the Great Depression.
And today, pure, unbridled capitalism brings us the collapse of our financial system and the greatest wealth inequality since 1929.
Again: What's wrong with socialism? What's wrong with my government protecting me from the predatory rampages of pure, unbridled capitalism?
Visit a modern Chinese city. You can't see the tops of the buildings - they're shrouded in dense, brown smog. You don't even have to go as far as China.
Mexico City has some of the worst air on the planet.
OUR government protects our air from industrial and automobile pollution, imposing socialist restrictions on industrial and automobile emissions.
When you make your cup of coffee in the morning, with ordinary tap water, do you worry about water-borne diseases like cholera and dysentery?
No?
Why not?
Because our federal government has imposed strict (socialist) water-quality standards on your local community.
Do you worry about the food you buy at your local supermarket?
Well - maybe a little, recently. Because W and his Republican enablers in Congress chose to underfund the FDA inspection program - allowing salmonella and other diseases to infect our food supply. But this was a Republican decision.
The system - the FDA (a socialist agency) is designed to protect our food supply. Republicans hate it. They'd rather you get sick rather than impose any evil, socialist, government regulation on Big Agriculture. After all, the unregulated free market is perfect!
So, yes: the public option (and Medicare, and the Veterans' Health Service, and the Medical branches of all our Armed Services) is a form of socialized medicine.
Know what? This is what the Framers of our Constitution wanted:
We the People of the United States, in order to...The general welfare. Not the welfare of Big Argriculture, or Big Finance, or Big Pharma, or Big Health - the GENERAL welfare!promote the general Welfare... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Framers went further, providing in Article I, Section 8 that:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States...If access to affordable, timely, high-quality healthcare doesn't count as "the general welfare", what does???
Yes, the right-wing is correct: the public option does represent 'socialism'.
So what?
Socialism is good for us!
Gee, Russ. It seems that you've hit your stride.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little bit frightened by how successful Big Money has been in shaping public opinion. To see Medicaid class people scream against the very programs that can save their lives almost confuses me. If it weren't for the fact that I'm an American, I'd simply say f*** 'em.