Time out...to see doctors

I haven't posted on this blog lately, so I have not done my usual pontificating on the major issues of the day, nor have I been dredging up personal memories of the past to publish here. My wife and I have been too busy visiting doctors. During the past week and in the upcoming week, one of us has seen or is scheduled to see a cardiologist, orthopedic surgeon, plastic surgeon, dermatologist, an ENT specialist, an eye doctor, gastroentrologist, and an internist.

Fortunately, we are receiving our medical care at a minimal cost. Medicare and the secondary medical insurance provided as part of my generous retirement package from the McGraw-Hill Companies, publishers of Business Week, will take care of the bulk of our expenses.

Most of the world's industrial powers provide such medical care to all its citizens, not only retirees. But in the U.S., the richest of the industrial powers, universal medical care is unavailable. One reason is opposition to what the opponents call "socialized" medicine. That's the same kind of nonsense used decades ago to argue against the enactment of Medicare itself.

But the major argument seems to be that the nation cannot afford to pay for medical care for all its citizens. It can afford, however, to waste up to a trillion dollars fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq, billions to rebuild that country's infrastructure, and hundreds of billions more to build and maintain an anti-ICBM weapon system that does not work and is designed to protect us from a non-existent enemy. And who knows about the countless other costly boondoggles in which the Bush Administration is engaged?

Meanwhile, the Administration can afford to reduce taxes for the wealthy even while we fight a war and to continue paying huge subsidies to major corporations and giant farming enterprises.

The bottom line is that there is no reason why all Americans should not have access to the same benefits of medical care that my wife and I enjoy.