More on Health care reform

fiveboxes - a twitter user - recently commented on my healthcare opinions. The gist of the comments, as I understand it, is that healthcare reform amounts to socialization of the healthcare industry. I can see the reasons for that argument although I disagree. I believe calling reform "socialization" could be much less negative than fiveboxes implies. I recognize that a homeless person dying of cancer can walk into a hospital and receive some treatment for free. That same person will be "streeted" as soon as the hospital can justify it because the hospital does not want to absorb the cost. The well insured person will always receive a higher standard of care because the hospital's greed for profit will demand full services. The limits and restrictions described in fiveboxes' comments are already real in the industry. The healthcare industry and the insurance industry are regularly finding new reasons to limit non-profit services while spinning the limits as cost savings. Either way the less fortunate always fall through ever-increasing cracks leading to poor quality of life and premature death. Socialization, as bad as it could possibly become, will be better for the people on the bottom of society's structure.

I do not believe we will let any president take our healthcare too far toward socialism. We will always support and glory in capitalism. What we need to do is practice capitalism with a conscience. We must be willing to give up a small piece of the profit margin in order to distribute some of the benefits of capitalism to those whose shoulders actually carry capitalism. The people who tighten the screws on our products and sweep the floors in our factories struggle to live a reasonable quality of life when their access to basic healthcare is limited.

I am 57 years old. I have suffered the closings of more than one employer and subsequent personal financial straits. I have had to fall back on 401K money just to survive on three different occasions. I lost my last two jobs in part due to medical problems that impacted my performance. Now I'm unemployed, uninsured, surviving on unemployment compensation for the next three months, and in poor health. I have a place to live as long as the unemployment checks continue but my health is deteriorating because I cannot see a doctor. I make just enough to disqualify for indigent care provisions at hospitals but nowhere near enough to pay for healthcare or insurance. To me a socialized system does not look quite so poisonous.

drp