Christine's Post

America’s fear of socialism, like it is some evil power is an interesting phenomenon to me, especially considering that the burgeoning American socialist party in the early 1900’s was a result of growing disparity of wealth in the United States. The Socialist Labor Party was mainly concerned with issues of equality both socially and in the work place. What is SO wrong with that? These fundamental ideals seemed to be lost amidst growing fears of communism. During the rise of communism, socialists were wary to associate themselves with a controversial communist system, especially after the government enacted Espionage Act. As a result, Socialist Labor Party membership dwindled in the 1950’s.
In a country founded upon capitalistic ideals, one is likely to reject any notion that implies a society of equals. While I understand the economic benefit of a free-market society, where private institutions produce and distribute goods, we should not lose sight of our obligations to others within this society. If health care is viewed as a positive right, there is an implication that social institutions have an ethical obligation to help individuals attain this right. Thus, in this particular situation, the idea of government intervention should not be such a scary thing. With the rising cost of health care premiums and little to no regulation on rising health care costs, shouldn’t someone be protecting the consumer? A government intervention that lobbies for lower consumer costs only stands to target those insurance companies who have been taking advantage of American consumers for too long.
So, while the ‘socialism’ argument is effective, it truly isn’t sound. The basic tenets of socialism aim to protect people from abuses of power and unfair distributions of wealth which have, historically led to civil unrest within countries. Exorbitant health care premiums leave close to 20% of Americans uninsured. Clearly, the free market system isn’t looking out for the average American with regards to health care. This is an absolute abuse of power that needs to be a national priority. Hopefully McCain’s ‘tax credit’ won’t be our only option.
With respect to truly socialist health systems in Europe, I suppose the countries that come the closest to this definition would be the UK and Sweden considering that about 85% of their funding comes from public expenditures and they both have high levels of public control of provisions.