Political Horizons for Aug. 30, 2009

• By MARK BALLARD
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Aug 30, 2009 - Page: 7B

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Anyone attending many of these so-called “town hall” meetings on health care, as I have, would hear a recurring theme: the fear that revisions being suggested in competing bills before the U.S. Congress would lead to “socialized medicine.”

With many waving signs bearing the hammer and sickle emblem of communism this past week across Louisiana, opponents spit out France and Canada, England and Sweden like pejoratives; as in how horrible it would be if the U.S. government delivered health care the way these countries do.

Though several bills are being discussed on Capitol Hill, all the measures, in varying degrees, would establish a system that, through tax credits and penalties, would require most employers to provide coverage and most employees to purchase it. The plans also would provide “a public option,” coverage provided by the federal government, not unlike what the military, veterans and the elderly now receive.

Serious opponents, including Gov. Bobby Jindal, argue that an expanded “public option” would undermine the private insurance industry and eventually push most people into a system where the federal government pays for all health care at a huge cost to taxpayers.

Louisiana taxpayers, above most others in the country, can testify to the daily, nitty-gritty impact of government-run health care because this state already pays for the coverage of one in four of its residents.

I’ve had a personal encounter with so-called socialist health care.

My sister is a former police officer and former card-carrying American Republican who now lives in Sweden. She and my wife were pregnant at the same time back in 2000. My sister had twice as many prenatal visits as my wife and the delivery of her little girl included a 10-day stay in the hospital because of complications. Total cost was $50, which her husband paid with a credit card and that was that.

She and her family go to see a general practitioner who lives near their farm. No waiting. The physician determines the necessary treatment and decides whether a specialist is needed. They pay $10 to $15.

Swedish voters view providing a basic level of health care as a government function similar to law enforcement, highways and defense. It’s a duty for which they collect taxes to pay.

My son’s birth eight years ago was the worst and best day of my life. He and my wife nearly died. They were saved by the heroics of doctors, nurses and top-notch hospital technology — American health care at its best.

What followed was nearly a year of “Catch 22” insurance commotion.

The high point was an argument over whether I should have vetted the doctors rushing to the operating room to save my wife’s life, my son’s life, and refused entry to those not signed up as a PPO, whatever that is. I’m lucky. My insurance coverage through my former employer was first rate. Total costs pushed six figures of which I had to come out of pocket for close to $20,000.

True, Sweden has a large tax burden that amounts to about one-third of my sister’s family income. But when I add up the various state, local, federal and sales taxes that my family pays, it comes pretty close to the same percentage.