Cities and suburbs, real and imaginary.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

quick little info about healthcare

america already has socialized healthcare.

insurance companies are "socialized" by their very definition. they spread risk and cost out among large groups of people.

anyone, anywhere, of any nationality, can acquire healthcare whether they are able to pay for it or not. that is actually quite close to what it means to have "socialized medicine".

yet, for some reason, we like to believe we don't have socialized healthcare. we like to believe that governments don't already have their bureaucratic fingers in every layer and office and cubicle and operating room. we like to live in some fancy dreamworld where we have freemarket, liberated, patriotic healthcare.

we don't. it's already socialized. it's been that way for years.

our political and cultural fear of saying the word "socialized" means we get all these guys in positions of authority building the system contrary to the reality, under the delusion that we don't have socialized healthcare.

thus, insurance companies don't caver what we really need, don't cover nearly enough people, and muck up businesses and business-owners with their employee benefit programs.

stop calling something what it ain't. embrace the socialism. it's already here. the sooner we allow ourselves to speak of the reality, we will be able build a better socialized system than what we have.

anyway, i was feeling ranty, and this is my megaphone - after all - and i will stop here, though i could continue to rant for quite a bit longer.

1 comment:

K.C. Shaw said...

Nothing to do with your post, but I wanted to thank you for the button! It arrived today and I love it! Thanks!