Ron,
It seems to me that requiring every person to have health insurance as not that big a problem. We already have extensive public health insurance whether we like it or not and it's not that bad. Police protection, fire protection and military are all examples of a form of social healthcare.
Police protection, fire protection and military are all examples of the ongoing process of socialism ...where "the government takes care of us". Whenever government provides for our care and protection, it is essentially socialism. We all pay for it and all reap it's benefits. There is a lot of running around claiming the sky may fall when it comes to taming corporate profits regarding the
outlandish cost of healthcare in the USA. I say take it with a grain of salt. Two grains. Follow the money.
Speaking of "outlandish", I don't think it is such an "outlandish statement" to say this country was built with a measure of socialism. I didn't get to answer Razor the other day (had to work). As for his inquiry, "who, when, where", I think I just said it above. Basically any form of democracy is socialism itself, and America is thusly partially built on socialism. The alternative is less and less government ...until there is none at all ...with no restrictions on one another. Unmitigated free enterprise isn't all it is cracked up to be. Our prisons are full of "entrepreneurs" that just wanted a free hand in drug sales. Some things, including the cost of present US healthcare, are just plain immoral and the public has to step in. Of course unmitigated socialism is not the answer either, so watchdogs are a good thing.
I don't believe it's literally true that Obama has stated that Seniors are a drag to society and should just take the pain and not waste money on medical care. I suppose somebody took something out of context, again, for propoganda value. Same goes for Razors assertion that,
" ...in England if over the age of 65 you do not get dialysis...". I wonder who made that up. Great scare tactic, anyway. Apparently English get that social benefit ...and a lot
more.
Whatever increased public costs are associated with public health care will be more than saved by costs saved by reducing ever more corrupt private profit entities. Leave it to good spin doctors to come up with a sarcastic saying, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." Now imagine, "I'm from the corporation and I'm here to help you." Hear it in a million corporate ads until people believe commercial advertising is really true, for every ad says exactly that. A bit illogical to say the least. Corporations are certainly, beyond doubt, For-Profit to help themselves. Government is for non-profit to help it's citizens, at least theoretically. I have to admit anything done by a committee of any kind is often a little flakey. Join a government committee; improve it. Most of us aren't, and never will be, allowed to join a corporate committee.
Another popular myth: The USSR and Cuba are socialist countries.
The USSR and Cuba aren't really socialist countries, although that was the revolutionary promise on their way to where they ended up. They are tyrannies, pure and simple. Nobody gets to share equally in anything there, unless you consider that official communist party members are more equal than others. They are single party systems, single ruling party systems. Not governments ...but tyrannical rulers. The tactical scare cry, "The communists are coming, the communists are coming!!", is getting old. Communism and socialism are not the same thing.
Not too surprisingly, the very term, "socialism" has taken on a sinister meaning, probably even before the era of McCarthyism. For the same reason as now ...those that had the gold back then wanted to write the rules that they may keep the gold ...without sharing one bit with the working folks they got it from in the first place. And public propoganda is the best way to achieve this, then as now. We are a long ways from becoming communists as long as we have two parties. It would be nice if they would bolster each other up rather than weaken us all from within.
I guess I can't blame anyone for assuming that socialism is the same as communism. Check out the modern definition of the word
socialism.
When Thomas Paine said,
"government at its best is a necessary evil" and Thomas Jefferson said,
"The government that governs the best, governs the least", they were absolutely correct. Government stepping in to regulate ridiculous runaway healthcare is now the least necessary evil we can do, IMO.
Wes
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