I posted below to the "US Forum" hosted by "E-Democracy" which is a list serve operated by Democratic Party hacks and financed by foundations like the Blandin Foundation.
The "moderators" have refused to allow this posting including the article following these comments:
It has been suggested on this list serve that this debate about health care reform is one between “fairness” and “freedom” as if the two are mutually exclusive when nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, as the article below demonstrates, socialized health care is based upon fairness and freedom.
Freedom to have access to health care is about fairness.
The time has come to talk about real health care reform which has been excluded from this discussion… socialized health care.
One need not travel to Finland as the author of the article below did to experience socialized health care for a testimonial to its effectiveness and fairness which are both important aspects of freedom.
Just ask anyone who has used VA or the Indian Health Service and they will tell you that socialized health care works just as well as the public library or municipal water and sewer systems or the United States Postal Service… I don’t hear complaints from people mailing a letter, turning on the faucet or flushing the toilet or those borrowing a sixty-dollar book from their local public library… and I for sure don’t hear anyone using the health care services of the Indian Health Service or VA calling for closing these programs down.
I have never heard any veteran claiming that the socialized health care she/he receives through VA is a threat to freedom or that it is unfair… my dad, a decorated World War II veteran, fought ahead of the infantry for four years against the Japanese imperialists in the Pacific and I can assure you he had a very good understanding of both fairness and freedom as he extolled the virtues of VA and recommended that it be expanded to provide socialized health care for all.
The only thing that is unfair and a threat to our freedom is people not having the right to have access to health care, and excluding socialized health care from the dialog, discussions and debates on health care reform as if Joe McCarthy is still goose-stepping backwards over our political landscape.
Alan L. Maki
A proud “red” Finn for socialized health care
The Truth about Socialized Medicine
by Audrey Mayer
I have been hearing a lot of pundits and politicians bemoan “socialized medicine” and its supposed inefficiencies and inequities. These horror stories are never accompanied by data, just hearsay and anecdotes from “a friend of a friend” in Canada or the United Kingdom. Rarely have I heard from people who have themselves experienced a universal public health care system. As one of those people, I thought I should speak up.
While living in Finland for three years, I experienced socialized medicine up close and personal. I gave birth to my son there.
Finland’s public health care system is run by a government agency called KELA, and the doctors, nurses, dentists, and other health care workers are government employees. KELA usually covers 100% of the cost of most services at public clinics, with small copayments for prescriptions and hospital stays that are scaled to a patient’s income. Finland also has many private clinics that are available to those who want to use them, where patients pay the extra cost of the private service (KELA will pay up to what the service would cost at a public clinic). When you visit a clinic or hospital you present your KELA card at the reception desk, and if a payment is necessary you can pay at the clinic, or a bill can be sent to your home.
All Finnish citizens and permanent residents are eligible for KELA benefits, as are immigrants on work and political asylum visas. I was eligible for the KELA system because I was in Finland on a work visa, and I paid income and social services taxes from my paychecks. Yes the taxes were high, about 40% of my gross pay. However, it is comparable to my take-home pay here in the US once I factor in my health insurance premiums, deductibles, and copayments, along with my income and social security taxes.
The care that I received in Finland throughout my pregnancy and childbirth, and for the first 9 months of my son’s life, was simply amazing. I saw the same nurse and doctor for monthly pregnancy checks (and later they were my son’s primary medical caregivers); their offices were in the same hallway. Both women knew us by name and by sight, and always remembered what we had discussed for the previous visit. Routine ultrasounds were performed at the maternity hospital; my nurse made each appointment for me and I simply showed up at the hospital for the procedure. When my labor started I headed to the maternity hospital, and the hospital’s nurses and doctors knew exactly who I was, as my medical files were available to them through KELA’s computerized filing system. (Patients must sign a form that allows their medical files to be accessible by other medical facilities, so a patient’s privacy rights are protected.) Every nurse coming on duty reviewed my file before seeing me, and so my discussions with them were focused on what my son and I needed at the moment, not what had been done during the previous shifts. After my emergency Cesarean operation and a four day stay in the hospital, only one bill was waiting for us when we got home, for a total of 260 Euros.
I never had to wait to see a medical professional, nor was any necessary procedure delayed or denied. Every nurse and doctor I saw was caring and knowledgeable, and spent whatever time was necessary to make sure that I received the care I needed.
I have now been living and working back in the US for 6 months, and already I have had problems with my health insurance plan through my employer. I found out the hard way (that is, at the doctor’s office after my son’s vaccination visit) that my son had been arbitrarily dropped from my plan months before, even though I had been paying the premiums for the family plan all along. It took almost a week of phone calls to get him reinstated. All the while, I privately wondered if the two ear infections he had had in the spring had prompted some computer at the health insurance company to calculate that he was “overusing” the system, and automatically drop his coverage.
That may seem like paranoid thinking, but I have seen it all before. In 2001, my mother was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. Instead of focusing her strength and attention on recovering from a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation, she spent much of her time arguing with the health insurance company and the hospital over bills she had already paid, and routine treatments that should have been covered by her insurance plan. Ultimately she lost her insurance altogether when she lost her job, and she has since been living in remission, uninsured.
When these pundits and politicians go onto national television and spew all sorts of false rhetoric about the evils of socialized medicine, it makes my blood boil. They are doing an incredible disservice to their fellow Americans, both those with and without health insurance. For every anecdote they have about a Canadian waiting six months for necessary open heart surgery, I can find twenty Americans for whom that equally necessary surgery is completely out of reach. Now is the time for an honest assessment about what (if anything) can be salvaged from our current system, and to put a system in place that does what it is supposed to do: provide health care.
Audrey Mayer is an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, focused on sustainability research and education.
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
Check out my blog:
Thoughts From Podunk
http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/
