HEALTH: We are all socialists

Our national security rests firmly on the individual and collective health of our citizens. Words are not reality. Using the terms socialism and socialistic like a club to beat people into submission is an act of cowardice and ignorance. Such terms are too often used to conceal irrational and negative motives. Let’s stop befogging the issue with words and look at reality. No other industrialized nation on this Earth saddles its businesses with the burden of providing a necessary service that is a right of every single citizen. America’s fragmented health insurance system costs our nation a good 40 percent more in dollars than a single payer Medicare for All system would, and it leaves at least 1/3 of our population with inadequate coverage or no coverage. This is equivalent to paying $10,000 for a car that’s only worth $6,000. Is that stupidity or simply ignorance?

Financing Medical Care in these United States is shaping up to be one of the most contentious issues we will face in the next four years. The rhetoric we hear can be distilled into two basic positions. The choice is between common decency, patriotism and greed. No nation can be stronger than its weakest link. Our national security rests firmly on the collective health of our citizens.

I am a resident of North Idaho. Here, the prevailing attitude of many people is that a single payer health insurance program like Medicare is socialistic. That term is thrown about like the nastiest four letter pejorative. We don’t want socialized medicine in Idaho or anywhere else.

Surprise my fellow citizens — we already have it and most residents in North Idaho are pretty damn proud of it. How so? Hospital districts, like school districts, are government entities. How many such community hospitals are there here and elsewhere in this country? That is what the Kootenai Medical Center is my friend? Kootenai Health is a public institution. It stands as a monument to what a community and our nation can achieve when we work together. In fact, Kootenai Health is the largest employer in Kootenai County. They have about 1,800 employees. Every single person who gets a paycheck from the hospital or its operating companies has been socialized. That means that every nurse, technician or any other person working in that facility has been socialized, but it works just fine.

All hospitalists and emergency physicians are either hospital employees or are contracted individually or as a group.

But guess what; your personal physicians are all still independent. Your personal physicians have privileges at your hospital, but they are still independent practitioners.

It is long past time for the United States to vote for a Medicare for All Health Insurance Program that will cover everyone. It is a dollars and SENSE sort of thing.

WHAT IS GOOD FOR ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS IS GOOD FOR AMERICA. THAT IS THE REAL MEANING OF PATRIOTISM.

J. ALBERT ROWE

Coeur d’Alene

bscutter@frontier.com