To the editor:
There is growing interest in Single Payer health care and taxing the ultra rich to help reduce income/wealth inequality. Thus now the word socialism is being called a dirty name. Yet socialism, a collective way of producing and distributing goods and services, currently permeates our culture.
Our highway and defense departments along with Medicare, public schools, libraries, and fire/rescue services are some examples. Historically when free enterprise can’t address a need the government steps in, socialism fills the void.
Drive on the Francestown Turnpike, once a private toll road, now owned by several towns. Initially when insurance companies offered fire coverage for property each firm had its own fire brigade, which proved grossly ineffective.
As a life-long business owner I’ve seen first hand how effective free enterprise and government partnerships can be. I’ve also watched my health care cost skyrocket as services keep getting cut. Obamacare has been an attempt to address this very complex problem in an evolutionary way, but unfortunately the Republicans have thrown a monkey wrench into the process. Thus great challenges continue, including ever-increasing costs. At this point Medicare for all is the ideal, yet the problem is how to move effectively in that direction by building upon what already exists.
In the richest country on Earth, a place with the creative energy to put men on the moon, we can do a far better job with health delivery. But it means we must communicate, cooperate and compromise.
Mike Beebe
Lyndeborough