Lions, and Tigers, and Socialism, Oh My

Have you noticed how everything these days is described as socialism and by association is horrible, bad, and the worst thing that could ever happen to this country? It's gotten so bad that Obama, in an interview, denied he was a socialist and after the interview, he called the reporter to once again deny it. I've heard tons of people talk about his health care plan. All they seem to say is that its socialism, it's horrible, and now this country is going to hell. There's no talk of the merits of the plan, no mention of the economics, whether it's going to help or hurt people, how much it's going cost, whether it's right. No, no honest debate. Just attach the world socialism and people flock to speak out against it.

This really frustrates me. It's like the word liberal. Call someone a liberal these days and its like calling them the devil. Bring out the crosses and evil eye. Again, no talk of what in the world that means, the word it self is bad enough.

First of all, guess what, we do have socialism in this country, and most people are better off for it! One definition

Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

In simple terms that means the government runs some programs, not everything is privately owned. Is that right? Am I reading that correctly? Oh we don't have anything like that do we? Wait, what about the police? And Firemen? We're all happy to pay for them, aren't we? And roads? I guess we all like having roads. Universities. Well, we used to have public universities and they used to be great, then we decided to stop funding them. Now we don't. They are still good (more or less) but the cost is becoming unaffordable to all except the wealthy. What else, oh yes, we love parks to run and bike in, the trails are always crowded. There's a group to make sure the water we drink is clean, an organization to try and find out if there is an out break of something and what food it's linked too (very hard to do, I tell ya), Street lamps, national forests, the court system (could you imagine if the court system was privatized.. only the poor would get convicted. Oh, wait. Well, it would be worse). I could go on and on, please add more in the comments. But suffice it to say, there are a lot of good things that the government does that could be construed as socialism.

Somehow, sometime, it got to be the norm to think that everything the government does is bad. Government worker? Terrible and they get paid too much money (really? Have you seen how much people with the same education are being paid in the private sector? Didn't banks just get in trouble for giving out millions in bonuses?) Government run construction? They waste so much money and do a terrible job. FDA can't do anything right. They try to speed up approvals and get sued for moving to quickly (vioxx). They try to be careful and then get told they are killing people because the drugs aren't being put on the market fast enough (the difficulties of testing drugs is another blog, but as you can imagine, it's hard to make people to accept being guinea pigs).

Why is everything the government touches bad? And why is socialism so bad?

And why is it so bad for health care? There are people who say socialize health care is terrible, but seriously, how can you get any worse then what we have know? 45 million uninsured, tons more underinsured. I heard a case today about how a guy lost his job. He decided to buy individual health care in case something catastrophic happened. Something catastrophic did happen - he came down with a kidney disease. Guess what happened. His insurance company dropped him. See, according to the insurance policy he bought, the company technically renewed his insurance every six months. Every time they renewed his insurance, they treated him as a completely new client. So any condition he had in six months was therefore a pre-existing condition for the next six months... and they could drop him. Can you believe that? Wow, this free market economy really worked for him.

What's interesting is that there are places that will give him treatment and take care of him once he gets really, really sick. There's nothing available to keep him from getting to that stage. The insurance companies won't pay for prevention because it costs them money and the government is only there as a last resort, because it's the free market private insurers that are supposed to pay for the minor things.

Luckily, in this particular case, the county the guy lives in does provide some health care for anyone who makes less then 200% of the federal poverty level. If he had lived across count lines, he wouldn't have this option. Actually, he wouldn't have any type of coverage because no on will pay for someone with a pre-existing condition (don't I know that).

Here are the economics as I understand them. As prices go up, the people who don't need the care as much tend to drop out thinking they don't want to pay for insurance - usually the health ones. With fewer people contributing, that means the costs go up for each person paying for insurance. Then the healthiest, who don't like the increase, buy less insurance, and the costs go up again. This continues so it's the sickest people that end up paying for everything with no help from any body else, and usually they can't afford everything. This is why all people need to pay for insurance. Think it won't work. Sure did for car insurance. Can you imagine how many people wouldn't have insurance if it wasn't required. More then now.

There's a ton more I can write, but I'm tired for now. Still, I want to know what's so bad with everyone contributing a little for the benefit of all. Is it really that bad of a thing? I don't get it. Let's stop calling new health care plan names and compare the inner workings of it with what's going on today. Please.