And Another Thing. . .

While waiting in the heat and humidity today, I was trying to read the book I brought along, but I couldn't help but overhear the conversations going on around me. This woman behind me was going on and on about the evils of socialism, and about her 80-some year old mother and how good she has it now. Why, her mother remembers the old days when old people just had to go to the poor house or their family had to take care of them, if they could. But now, her mother has such a nice life, she has enough food to eat, and can treat herself to the beauty parlor once a week (food and perks, I'm sure, paid for with social security), and lives in a nice apartment in a local senior high rise (I know this to be government subsidized housing), and she has Medicare - life is just peachy, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I finally couldn't take it anymore. I turned to this woman and politely said "With all due respect, ma'am, Medicare is a form of socialized medicine. Your aging mother's great life is in large part made possible by the government, the government is supporting her."

And she just kind of looked at me kind of dumbfounded for a second, nodded and said "Uh-huh" as if she agreed with me, then turned back to her companions and continued her diatribe against the evils of socialism.

I just honestly don't understand how people can be that ignorant. How can you, in the same breath, both rail against socialism AND laud an essentially socialist system from which you are personally deriving great benefit? A system which is sparing you, as the child, the bulk of the cost (in both time and money) of caring for your aging parent, and freeing you to take off to a second home in Florida for half the year (yeah, that was part of the conversation too)?

And for that matter, why are so many people so afraid of bureaucrats making decisions about what kind of care we receive when health insurance industry bureaucrats are ALREADY making the decisions about what kind of health care we receive, and have been instructed to make the company's bottom line, not your health, their guiding principle?