Two unrelated but momentous things, at least significant to me, happened this past week in the field of medicine.

First, I had a regular visit with one of the five doctors whose job over the years has been to keep my long abused body in better-than-just-functioning-condition.

This particular visit was with my nephrologist, whose job it is to keep my failing kidneys doing their job. I was first referred to her some four or five years ago to be placed on dialysis but she said that we should try some meds and a change of lifestyle. Well, during this visit, my wife and my doctor got very excited because my creatinine levels had reached a six-year low. Now understand that I didn’t even know I had a creatinine level but these two women, as are my other four medical specialists, are dedicated to keeping me around. By the way, my creatinine is the measure of how much of my body toxins are cleared by my kidneys. Anyways, I now see my kidney doctor far less than before. This is good news and bad news. You see, the good news is that I am obviously doing better health wise, but the bad news is that this doctor and one of my other specialists who I am also not seeing as much are both adorable females and are both good for a minimum of three heart-felt hugs per visit and I will miss those hugs.

The second medical event to which I am referring this past week is the announcement by Glenn Beck, whom you all know as the very politically conservative radio and television host, announced that he had developed a particularly dangerous and hard-to-diagnose-and-treat medical problem. But thanks to some outstanding medical treatment by some very high-priced practitioners and medical facilities, he is in a position to live and function with his medical problem. I am happy for Glenn, and I am glad to find at least this one common ground to share with him.

This does make me wonder, however, will having experienced the doubt and fear about a continued existence and the reversal of his physical problems through available medicine make Mr. Beck now reverse his professed opposition to ObamaCare which gives the same or almost the same opportunity to millions of other Americans to stay healthy and alive?

For the record, I believe that so-called ObamaCare is a lousy plan but is better than the nothing we had before. Before it was a reliance on the integrity of a health insurance industry which has shown over the years to be mostly law abiding but has also shown itself to be morally corrupt.

I, on the other hand, favor socialized medicine just like I have through my Veterans Administration Hospital and my Medicare benefits supplemented by my Medicare-plus Insurance. The definition of socialized medicine is the placing of medical care under the guidance, control and financial obligation of the government and available to all.  As the only major industrialized nation in the world without some form of socialized medicine, we should be ashamed of ourselves, which is why we keep it a secret that I have two socialized medical plans that, while looking out for my general wellbeing, keep me seeing, hearing, breathing, cover my mobility and look out for my body and mental health. Shouldn’t everyone have at least what I have?

When a resident of our country suffers an illness or dies because of lack of medical care, it is a shame on all of us, and yes, I know how to simply, easily and without hardship finance all of our social programs way beyond the expected lifetime of anyone reading this but that is for another article.