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A good friend, with whom I have had vigorous debates over the years, has been startled by Congressman Ryan’s recent proposal to gut Medicare. He expressed a deep concern about the use of the word, “socialist” and its employment as a slur. He points out that government by its nature is socialistic. So with his tongue deep in his cheek he writes:
“This morning I witnessed a blinding flash of the obvious. I recalled the plaintive town-hall cry a couple of years ago, ‘I don’t want government to run health care—keep your hands off my Medicare.’ Our state and national governments are the purest form of socialism. Socialism, after all, is the model in which the means of production are publicly owned. The elected officials, the employees, every ream of paper—all are publicly owned. All untainted socialism. LET’S DO AWAY WITH SOCIALISM AND PRIVITIZE GOVERNMENT! Every government program would be in private hands and would charge a fee for its services. All highways would become toll roads. Armed forces would become mercenaries. Weapons systems would be funded with private bonds. Pharmacies would add a few extra cents to each pill to fund drug safety. Passengers would pay an extra charge for air traffic control. Voting? The people would vote with their dollars and the market would decide what is needed. No more government regulations. Just free enterprise. Programs that don’t generate sufficient income through charges to customers would simply fade away. And the national debt? What national debt?
The three branches of government would no longer be publicly funded. Members of Congress would have to raise private funds from their districts or states to participate in the debate club which would replace Congress. There would be no more laws to create, since laws are the essence of socialism. Judges would rake off a percentage of settlements they negotiated. Presidents would charge admission for tours of the White House and rides on Air Force One.
I’m shocked that the Tea Party has not realized all this sooner. No wonder our government is broken---it’s socialist!"
M
The problem M addresses is generated by those attempting to score political points labeling everything the government does “Socialism.” Obviously there are enterprises that can be run more cheaply and effectively by private enterprise. When they can compete successful with government programs, the latter might well be phased out. One thinks of the most effective way to send and deliver packages. UPS and Federal Express might well take over that section of the US Postal Service. When it is more efficient and economical, privatization may be a solid option.
Nevertheless, to call those parts of the social network that government can do with less cost and greater efficiency socialism is a failure to define the term. But government sponsored programs to provide adequate health care for poor children, for instance, are not socialism. The doctors who work with these programs, the hospitals that house them, the drug companies that provide their medications are all privately run and privately financed. Practically everything we buy, sell, rent, eat, build or produce comes to us via good old American capitalism. And that’s the way it should be. The operating genius of America is not socialism.
Even if we adopted a single-payer health insurance plan, that would not be socialism, unless the government owned the hospitals and the drug companies, and hired the doctors. Ryan’s proposal to privatize Medicare—a government insurance plan—would end up costing the taxpayers more and would essentially gut the program for most older citizens. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office believes that the Ryan plan would double the expenses for the average senior. The beneficiaries would be the insurance industry’s highly priced executives and their stockholders. The losers would be America’s seniors.
We have a balanced economy in which private enterprise can do many things more cheaply and efficiently, but so can government. Medicare needs to be revised, but privatization is not the answer.
Charles Bayer
candwbayer@verizon.net
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