Thomas Friedman presents an interesting view of Barack Obama…as a man who is very good at being President of the United States and not so good at making people aware of his accomplishments in that job. And I'll quote one paragraph that I think is especially true…
"Obamacare is socialized medicine," says the Republican Party. No, no — excuse me — socialized medicine is what we have now! People without insurance can go to an emergency ward or throw themselves on the mercy of a doctor, and the cost of all this uncompensated care is shared by all those who have insurance, raising your rates and mine. That is socialized medicine and that is what Obamacare ends. Yet Obama — the champion of private insurance for all — has allowed himself to be painted as a health care socialist.
I think I said this in a blog post before and if I didn't, I meant to. The day this country passed a law that said that people who can't pay would be treated for free in an emergency room was the day we got Socialized Medicine. And I think it was a good and necessary thing, though not as good as a real program. Better would have been a plan that enabled those folks to go to doctors before their conditions got so grave that they had to go to an emergency room. What they get there is much more expensive and nowhere near as efficient as preventative care or early detection.
That law, in case you're interested, was the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, passed in 1986 by a Democratic House and a Republican Senate, then signed into law by Ronald Reagan. That made it possible for someone to get free medical care which someone else would pay for. How is that not "Socialized Medicine?"