by H. N. Burdett
Of all the hyperbolic hysteria bandied about during the debate over health care reform, the most outrageous is that the nation is rapidly sliding down a slippery slope where it will be snapped into the awaiting jaws of Socialism.
Established by people fleeing religious and political persecution, the United States has been throughout its existence a refuge for those running from something which generally falls under such catchall categories as "oppression" and "tyranny."
Thus it is in our DNA that we are, justifiably or not, more than a little wary of Big Government, which gets our blood stirring about the specter of an assortment of evils from the monarchial-sanctioned 15th century inquisitions to the monstrous 20th century concentration camps and gulags that emerged respectively from jackbooted fascism and police state communism .
Merely intoning the threat of Socialism -- cradle-to-grave dependence of the governed on the benevolence of the governing -- is enough to cause the mythical monolith known as the Average American to recoil in fear or lash out in anger.
Egged on by unanimous Republican opposition in the House of Representatives, which sees political advantage in portraying Democrats as the facilitators of rampant collectivism that stands diametrically opposed to the romantic ideal of rugged individualism, the American public, assuming the polls are accurate, is sharply divided over health care reform enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last month.
Proponents of the legislation argue that our economy cannot be stabilized unless and until the runaway costs of health care are brought under control. For good measure, they add that the United States government is the only one in the industrialized world that fails to offer health insurance to its citizens.
Indeed the shadows of the two most prominent American Socialists of the last century loom large over what has been derisively characterized as Obama-care. Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas appear to have been at very least prophetic in their pronouncements regarding the direction of the movement they led.
"When great changes occur in history," Debs said, "when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority is wrong."
Thomas was even more direct. "The American people will never knowingly accept Socialism," he maintained. "But under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing what happened."
Certainly Thomas's words seem to have resonated with Republicans in the House of Representatives who stood in lockstep opposition to the health care bill. Virtually all agreed that reform was needed, but not the reform offered. Whenever they were asked to improve, revise or correct what was written, they emitted the dense fog of obfuscation. Their response was that they needed to start all over from the beginning with a blank slate -- a mealy-mouthed way of saying, "No way, not today, not now, and not ever." This all brings to mind the observation of one of our country's more beloved founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin: "Conservatives want change, they just don't want it now."
But while Republicans and their right-wing fellow travellers rail against the legislation which they assail as the abomination of "socialized medicine," American Socialists rail against it because it is not.
"This is not a health care reform bill," says Billy Wharton, co-chair of the Socialist Party USA. "It is instead a corporate restructuring of the American health care system designed to enhance the profits of private health insurance companies."
Wharton excoriated the legislation for mandating that all Americans purchase health insurance coverage or face a fine. The bill would also create health insurance exchanges, a brainstorm of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank that could hardly be confused with the politburo.
Under these exchanges, people would purchase health insurance from private companies. Those ineligible for Medicaid but unable to afford insurance would receive public funds to purchase bare bones coverage from private insurers.
Wharton opposes this "restructuring" on grounds that the mandates "allow private insurers to use the corrosive powers of the state to enhance their private profits. Insurance credits will serve as a public subsidy to private companies. It is just another case of public money that could be used for necessary social programs being funneled towards companies that engage in practices that are abusive and detrimental to the overall society."
He said the bill "demonstrates how deeply corporate lobbyists and campaign contribtions have infected the country's political system."
Dr. Margaret Flowers, a leading activist for single-payer national health insurance, maintains that the Democratic party "has moved so far to the right that they have...passed a Republican health care bill. This is no surprise, private insurers and pharmaceutical companies have flooded the electoral system with money in order to guarantee their continued ability to accumulate profits.
"For the first time in American history, citizens will be forced to purchase health insurance or face stiff annual fines. Such a mandate guarantees that millions of people will be herded ino the new 'health insurance exchanges,' an idea created by the Heritage Foundation, in order to fork over their money to private insurers."
Health insurers spent an average of $600,000 a day for lobbying during just the first six months of 2009. "Lobbyists had a seat at the table during all parts of the writing, debate and approval of the bill," Dr. Flowers said. "When single-payer advocates from the Physicians for a National Health Program and Healthcare Now attempted to participate in proceedings at the Senate Finance Committee, they were at first denied a seat and then arrested."
In remarks before the National Press Club, Republican National Chairman Michael Steele accused President Obama of "conducting a risky experiment that will hurt the economy and force millions to drop their current (health care) coverage." Asked if he felt the health care reform measure was "socialism," Steele replied: "Yes."
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told Newsweek that Americans "must take their country back by methodically eliminating every vestige of creeping socialism, including socialized medicine."
A number of Republican lawmakers claim that no one knows everything that is in the health insurance reform bill, but when the facts become known American citizens will be enraged. While this may or may not be, what no one denies is that insurers will be writing up policies for 32 million Americans, who did not previously have health insurance but will now have it subsidized by the United States government.
Newsweek political correspondent Howard Fineman quipped, "If this is Socialism, Warren Buffett is Karl Marx."
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