From where Kate and I were sitting we couldn’t help hearing their conversation. The two couples, like us, were in the railcar at Clara’s Depot restaurant, for a late Sunday afternoon dinner. One of the men asked the other couple, “What do you think about this health care thing?” One of the women replied. “It sounds like Socialism to me.”
This past week Nidal Hasan was alleged to have killed 13 people and wounded 29 at Fort Hood in Texas. Presumably those victims who are active duty military will have their medical expenses paid for by the United States Government. Should their wounds force them out of the service they will likely be eligible for continuing benefits through the Veterans Administration. Likewise, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, the civilian police officer employed by Fort Hood, who shot Hasan and was herself wounded, will probably have her medical care and expenses covered by the United States Government—the American taxpayer. But if the U.S. government uses tax money to pay these expenses isn’t that socialist?
The fact is no one is drafted anymore. Soldiers choose to be soldiers. And police officers choose their career. If they deserve special consideration so do teachers, construction workers, train engineers, pilots, doctors, nurses, bus drivers, bridge inspectors, ranch hands, and plumbers. And so do our children, the elderly and the poor.
The fact is any government program, service or project that uses taxpayer’s money can be deemed Socialism by its detractors—and that includes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the bank bailouts.
© Michael Maurer Smith 2009
Well put, and right you are.
Mike, you have three posts here that deserve publication to a wide audience – although such publication would be no guarantee that the people who need to read, consider and perhaps even act on them would do so.
I have no opposition to health care reform. Tort reform, capped out-of-pocket expenses, portability – all would go far toward righting some of the wrongs in the system.
But the very clear assumption underlying every bit of proposed legislation – that our elderly population isn’t worth wasting money on – upsets me so badly I barely can listen to the debate. Of course there comes a time when extraordinary (read: expensive) measures are not called for. No one needs every test in the book, every time.
But my mother had her stent at age 81, her pacemaker at age 85. Had a government panel decided she was “outside the guidelines” for such procedures, she would be dead instead of living happily and independently in her own home.
You did mention “children, the elderly and the poor”, and for that I’m grateful. But in a society that places almost no value on the wisdom and experience of age, the proposed legislation, with its expansive definition of “elderly” and proposed cuts in Medicare, makes me very, very nervous.