Let's Talk Socialism

Throughout the current health care debate, conservatives have thrown around one word like some terrible four letter expletive. That word is socialism. They use it to obfuscate and strike fear into the hearts of the ignorant masses, who give no real quantifiable thought to what they are hearing. With the debate over the current bill coming to a head in the senate it is important to understand exactly what congressional republicans, as well as external conservative sources like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (the real leaders of the republican party.) are saying.

So, let’s talk socialism. The primary image driving the socialism fright-fest is that of the totalitarian, Stalinist dictatorship, of a government takeover of everything from media outlets to grocery stores. This is completely erroneous. Socialism is at the same time remarkably simple and complex, it is public ownership or regulation of a certain thing for the benefit of the community, and is all around us every day. Yes, that’s right, look out, there is socialism right outside your door. America has lot’s of socialism, if you drove to work on a paved road today, that was socialism. If your kids go to public school, that’s socialism. If you listened to the radio, and heard one station per frequency rather than several overlapping signals, that’s socialism. The military, undeniably important to the right wing, so much so that they give it political precedence over things they probably shouldn’t, is the best example of socialism in the nation. It is a huge body, regulated by public oversight, and paid for with public money. Socialism is everywhere, and our nation wouldn’t function without it.

The really ironic thing is that as terrified as conservatives are of socialized healthcare, they don’t realize that we already have it. The problem, which the currently proposed healthcare reform bill is attempting to change, is that our social healthcare system is so inefficient and unwieldy that it threatens to collapse in on itself. If a person walks into a hospital requiring care, they will be treated regardless of whether they can pay, it is illegal to do otherwise. The treatment they are given may be substandard, and it will likely bankrupt them, but they will receive it none the less. However, the hospitals they visit are not charities and the cost of their care must go somewhere, so it is recouped by raising the cost of care for everyone else. Therefore, the cost of care for those with the inability to pay is transferred to those who can, the essence of socialism. What the public option proposes is not to create a government monopoly on health care or even create a system of socialized medicine, but to regulate the hideously bloated system that already exists, by creating a system where prices are lowered and costs offset not by tax revenue as so many people believe (only a small portion of the population will qualify for subsidies for the public plan), but by creating competition. So, if the right-wing is so afraid of “socialism” they should ask themselves, which is more socialist? A system which drives down cost by creating strong competition and leveraging prices, Or the status quo, a system which continues to drive prices skyward as those who can afford to pay are saddled with the costs of the increasing number of people who cannot.