Published in the Loveland CO Reporter-Herald Newspaper:
Wednesday August 19th, 2026
pg. A4
I’m seeing another foundation of fear, hate, and division being built to scare us off the Democratic Socialists of America’s platform (eeeek!!! The commies are coming!). Although I may not agree with everything DSA is putting out – their statements about public ownership of the banks does give me the willies. How about breaking up too-big-to-fail financial companies instead? However I might agree with what they have to say about public utilities for starters, something that often doesn’t have the key ingredient of choice which makes a for-profit enterprise work. I’ve been impressed with our community-owned Platte River Power Authority – as for for-profit Xcel, not so much. And I’ve read former Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich’s book ‘The Division of Light and Power’. It reads like a thriller with the for-profit utility Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI) in the role of villain! So it looks like DSA and I might find some common ground when it comes to utilities.
And healthcare is another area. I’ve seen up close and personal what the for-profit motive can do to an area of medicine like kidney dialysis. Much like for-profit utilities, the for-profit duopoly dialysis companies have taken advantage with high prices and some God-awful care – much to the detriment of both patients and taxpayers. For more on that, I would highly recommend NYT’s best-selling author Tom Mueller’s book ‘How to Make a Killing’. I made sure the (Colorado) state’s chairs of the Health & Human Services committees each got a copy when I testified this last spring for a dialysis technician bill.
And I would be amiss if I didn’t point out a fundamental fact about for-profit health insurance – they make money by NOT paying claims. Deny, deny, and then deny. It is still going on! If we ran the fire department like we run our health insurance system, they would only be putting out fires in certain rooms – if they showed up at all!
But let’s get back to scare tactics! So many times when the subject of the DSA comes up with the right-wing commentators, their hissy fit will go off on Venezuela (oh me!) and Cuba (oh my!). However they seem to exclude the Scandinavian countries’ Nordic Model where policies and economics align much more with the platform of the DSA – more so than Venezuela and Cuba. So why are the Scandinavian countries not a target of these right-wing influencers? It couldn’t be that media organizations like Forbes and the BBC have consistently highly ranked Scandinavian countries as some of the happiest countries on earth! Nay, that couldn’t be it.
I will also say I’m seeing similarities to another populist movement: the Republican Tea Party movement. Both have anti-establishment roots, are grassroots, and both have gone after the ruling elites. Beyond that the DSA has examples of much of what they are proposing working, again Scandinavia.
While I’m at it, I’ll mention I’ve had experience with real “commie-care”. The VA is government-owned and government-run. It probably saved me from bankruptcy when I had a heart attack 17 years ago – and saved my life! That VA “commie-care” “has consistently received strong to exceptional ratings when evaluated against private-sector healthcare” – oftentimes at lower costs. I just hope the private equity vultures now circling that pile of money don’t screw it up! (they probably will)
By now you might understand why I don’t work up a lather when critics call DSA a communist, socialist, and Bolshevik organization. FDR had to put up with the same nonsense back in the 1930s and ‘40s.
written by the maintainer of this website
(P.S. Speaking of kidney dialysis, here is an eyeopener: EVEN KIDS!!! HAVE BEEN AFFECTED!!!)
