Socialism, alas, still dirty word in Ameri

It is difficult to see how anybody could remain a Republican after President Bush’s callous and mean-spirited veto of a congressional act to expand children’s health insurance (SCHIP). Kids, for God’s sake!
But, hey, that’s socialized medicine, a taboo in American politics. Socialism is making a pact with the devil. As Bush puts it: children’s health insurance is a dangerous step toward a government-run health program.
Mitt Romney, one of the dreadful GOP candidates for president, adds xenophobia to absurdity by denouncing Hillary Clinton’s totally inadequate national health plan as “European-style socialized medicine.”
But nothing is wrong with the European welfare state except in the warped minds of cretins like Bush and Romney.
Europe’s economy surges while maintaining the fairness and equality of socialism. Europe nearly has cradle-to-grave socialism.
Universal, single-payer health insurance. Child care. Paid sick leave. Paid parental leave. Generous retirement programs. Nearly free higher education.
That’s what socialism is all about. And that’s what a civilized nation provides for its people.
America, in sad contrast, is the richest country on earth but has virtually none of the things that make Europe so great. Until America does have them it will remain uncivilized.
America spends zillions for foolish wars but spends precious little for the things that matter. As Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts has noted: “This is all a matter of priorities. The cost of Iraq is $333 million a day. The cost of SCHIP is $19 million a day.”
Europe has five-week vacations with pay compared with two weeks in America. Europe has a shorter work week. European countries work one full day a week less than Americans do. But Europeans still have the same standard of living as Americans do.
America has privatized so much health care in order for drug makers and insurance firms to reap enormous profits at the expense of ordinary people. That’s obscene capitalism. America remains the only major industrialized nation without universal health insurance.
A study by the Commonwealth Fund in New York finds that the U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world, double that of any other country. But it is dead last in almost any measure of performance.
The U.S. health care system is the best in the world--for the rich.
Bush, a wealthy man with presidential health perks, declares cavalierly that the 47 million American without health insurance always can go to hospital emergency rooms.
Meanwhile, employers have cut back or eliminated health benefits. Many families, unable to keep up with soaring health costs, are unable to buy insurance at a reasonable rate. Medical costs are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.
Moreover, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes: “Most uninsured adults report cutting corners on medical care to save money, failing to fill prescriptions, skipping medications and going without preventive care.”
More than half of America’s low-wage earners, in the range of $20,000 a year, are not covered. But as Jim Hightower in his Lowdown newsletter notes: “The Bushites view health as a consumer good not a part of the common good”…“People who need care are not patients but customers.”
Hightower, noting that health care is not a market need but a human need, quotes Martin Luther King: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
Catastrophic medical cases for people without insurance are the worst. They can’t get insured. Another serious problem is self-employed people who cannot get affordable insurance.
Since a woefully malapportioned Senate is unlikely anytime soon to enact universal health insurance, states across the country are experimenting with different ideas to solve the problem, from universal health care to requiring box stores like Wal-Mart to insure their employees. As Justice Brandeis pointed out, states are laboratories, free to make social and economic experiments when Congress refuses to act for the public good.
Michael Moore’s documentary last summer, “Sicko,” was a powerful plea for national health insurance. The film asks: “Who are we?” The answer is plain: grossly immoral.
Tony Benn, a Labor Party legend, talks to Moore in the film about the British National Health Service passed by Labor in 1948. It was not state paternalism but a triumph of social democracy, Benn said.
America, a great country? No. It is a terrible country. Its lack of national health and other socialistic measures is unconscionable.