Socialised Medicine is a Thing of Beauty

[Publisher's note: It has been a mighty long time - three months, an eternity in the blogosphere - since our heady correspondent in Africa inveighed against the depredations of Western imperialism in the third-world. In the last three months he has moved - twice - and is only now starting to settle into his new home before moving a third time in 2008 come August.]

In all the debate about health care reform in American politics - and since it is America we are talking about, perhaps "shouted slogans and sneers" is a better characterisation than "politics" - the dirty word among even Democrats, those erstwhile supporters of reform so long as it conforms 100% with Republican ideology, is "socialised medicine".

But socialised medicine, my dear readers, is a wonderful thing. Why, even libertarian financial analysts like Bill Bonner of The Daily Reckoning, an avid Ron Paul supporter, sings it praises. Bonner, an American in Paris, has a daughter working as a waitress in London. She works for paltry wages (by London standards), yet has full health care coverage under the UK's "socialised medicine" program.

Contrast her life with that of 1 in 6 Americans (and 1 in 4 Texans) who are uninsured. Many of these are professionals or more highly-skilled labourers than waitresses who lack insurance and are one major illness away from certain bankruptcy. Indeed, the leading cause of bankruptcy in these United States is inability to pay medical bills.

And yet this very idea of providing for all - universal education, universal human rights... why not universal health care? - is pooh-poohed off the stage by both right and left in the U.S. under the love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name: socialised medicine.

I am a U.S.-born, U.S.-trained physician and I am temporarily back in the U.S., practising here. I love the idea of socialised medicine. It is beautiful, it is just, it is warm, it is perfect. In a way, it is very much like the summer day Shakespeare described in Sonnet XVIII - but without the rough winds shaking the darling buds of May.