As Michael Moore points out in “Sicko,” his documentary on how corporate greed has destroyed the U.S. healthcare system, rightwingers never complain about the socialism of the U.S. military or local fire and police departments and libraries. It is only when discussing healthcare that the old socialist bogeyman is dredged up:
Nearly two decades after the West’s victory over communism, one might have thought it possible to discuss reform of the health-care system without invocations of the old saw “socialized medicine.” But no.
“At least Mr. Baucus isn’t disguising his socialist goal,” a Wall Street Journal editorial claimed about the Montana senator’s push to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. “In sum, SCHIP turns out to be socialized medicine for ‘kids,’ ” wrote Post columnist Robert Novak. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the “SCHIP bill is not a back door to get socialized medicine. They went straight to the front door.” Rudy Giuliani argued: “The American way is not single-payer, government-controlled anything. That’s a European way of doing something; that’s frankly a socialist way of doing something.”
The reason for this is clear: The insurance companies are major donors to the GOP. As was famously said in another horror movie: “Quid pro quo, Dr. Lector.”
“rightwingers never complain about the socialism of the U.S. military or local fire and police departments and libraries.”
That’s coming next. Read Naomi Klein’s Disaster Capitalism – availabe as book, or the quickie version = an article in this month’s Harper’s Magazine.