No Snowementum

Despite the fact that Maine Senator Olympia Snowe (one of the GOP's so-called Ladies of Maine) voted in favor of the Baucus Bill in the Senate Finance Committee today- Politico.com is reporting that Centrists Democrats still have their doubts on healthcare reform.

I struggle with Health Care reform. I have issues with the idea of the government being involved with Health insurance in any way, shape or form. This is after all, the United States Government we're talking about here. But at the same time, I have bigger issues with the thought that people in America- the United States of America today, right here, right now may actually die because of lack of money or inability to get themselves covered.

People should die from heart attacks. They should die from diseases or natural causes. They shouldn't die from lack of money or inability to get insurance. To me, the fact that this is the situation we face every day in America is the greatest indictment of modern capitalism that I can think of. The problem that I come back to again and again is that 20 years after the Revolutions of 1989, the American left still can't seem to figure out that socialism doesn't work. Command economies are dead dessicated corpses of the failed Soviet experiment and the European welfare state will implode over lack of money and no birthrates to help them through the demographic crunch that's coming.

The fact that money is tied so tightly to medical care is just symptomatic again of the problems of the American system: we are the opposite of China. Our political and economic systems are fast becoming one in the same. And so we find ourselves staring at Health Care costs that are out of control and a political system saddled with an inability to take on the vested economic interests that are stacked against meaningful reform. And if we don't get meaningful reform, what then?

I view socialism as dead. Capitalism as decaying. Libertarianism too cold. Anarchism too out of reach. There's nothing left, but the conclusion that if we do not reform- and not just health care, everything-- our national priority should be to disentangle our politics and economics once and for all- then the rich will continue to get richer and the middle-class and the lower classes will continue to bankroll their largess.

At the end of the day, I have an inherent distrust of any government to do anything efficiently. Governments and bureaucracies are by their very nature paragons of inefficiency. But I think we can get meaningful health care reform. We can get a foundation for future reforms and consumer protections that are badly needed. When I think of living in an America where you need money to save your health or even your life I get mad, I get said and I honestly think about emigrating. No one should have to pay to live.

But as I said: I struggle with Health Care reform.