I lived for more than 50 years in a “socialist democracy,” the Netherlands. I always wondered why so many Americans find that socialism is a curse. Now I know why. Recently someone wrote: a socialist believes a person’s body, health, soul, property and money belong to the state! As if a socialist is owned as a property by a state! That’s the biggest nonsense I’ve read in a long time.
A real socialist believes that one of the most important tasks for a government is to take good care for the weak, the sick and the poor. That is based on solidarity. He who has more can give more to achieve that goal. It works great in a whole lot of West-European countries.
You own your body yourself, but you need affordable access to health care. Obamacare improved that a lot, but by far not enough yet. Insurance companies want high premiums for low-covering health plans and still leave you with high out-of-pocket costs, co-pays, co-insurance and can refuse to pay for medicine which your doctor prescribed. Pharmaceutical industries, (wasting a lot of money on TV advertisements which are not even allowed in the rest of the world!) clinics, doctors all want to make high profits. Hopefully Obama will tighten his grip on these companies!
Luckily, in a democracy people are free; but if I had to be owned, I would rather be owned by a socialist democracy than by big companies whose first priority is to make money!
Johannes van Hijum
Marysville
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