give me that word back, i was gonna use it

socialism ('sO-sh&-"li-z&m): any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Consider federal grants for higher education, are they socialist? We want kids to get an education so we give them money to purchase that education from any provider they choose, so no. While they may reflect social values, college grants are not considered socialist because they do not govern or administer any means of production, nor do they distribute goods or services.

The desire to educate our population is analogous to our societys desire for its citizens to have access to healthcare. Universal access to healthcare has been proposed in the past, an analog to federal financial aid, but for some reason this has been labeled socialized healthcare and demonized as a one way street to Big Brother controlling our every waking moment and dolling out just enough victory gin to get a guy through the day.

Who could have possibly gotten it into our heads that wanting to provide healthcare to our fellow humans is socialist? Well, who would suffer if the government provided money for healthcare? The insurance industry, in the back, I'm looking at you.

Some quick facts about the health insurance industry:

Over the four years from 2000-2004,

Despite a weak economy and soaring medical costs, U.S. health insurers took in profits at a far greater pace than the rest of corporate America. Profit margins doubled for the top 10 insurers, while the average profit margin across the S&P 500 dropped 20%.

Profits for the 17 top U.S. health insurers rose 114 percent to $414 million from $193 million on average.

Average pay for the five top executives at the top health insurers almost doubled to $3 million a year.


"They're making boatloads of money," said Tom Boldt, senior health-benefits consultant for Watson Wyatt, a leading human-resources consulting firm.
(see http://investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=23544168&brk=1)

Thats profit in the second bullet, not income, profit. Thats $414 million in a year that people spent to have healthcare, that never went to providing them healthcare. Is that the most efficient system, or is that a gargantuan middle man? Where's my invisible hand!?

Were nice people here in Massachusetts, and we want our citizens to be able to get the healthcare that they need, but we've been taken. We let our fear of the Red Menace cloud our judgment and weve been had by shysters and shills. Instead of passing a law to give money to people to get healthcare, we passed a law which forces them to get, and in some cases gives them money to get you guessed it, health insurance. Over $7.5 million was spent on lobbying for this bill alone, much of which came from the insurance industry, in a state government!

So now somehow our goodwill has been turned into more profits for health insurers, and all because weve been fooled about what universal healthcare would mean. Whatever your stance on Socialism with a big S, dont let middlemen take advantage of a hot-button word to extort money from good people who just want to have access to medical care for themselves and their fellow people. Lets bring creative solutions for universal healthcare back to public debate, and stop the major corporate giveaways.