Single Soccer Player

The last few days I have become a soccer grandpa, taking my grandchildren to three soccer practices in two days. Tonight both practices were held in dark, drizzling and dreary weather. Despite the weather my two older grandsons did learn tonight that no matter how good a single player is, soccer is a team sport.

The last few days I have been getting emails in support of the single payer health care system as we find in Canada and Europe. The single payer system has been misrepresented by the big health care business as part of the slippery slope to ‘socialism.’ So far Congress and President are refusing to seriously consider an American version of this effective and affordable health care system that so many in the West enjoy. I guess single payer is not individualistic enough, and equal access of health care is dangerous. I do not have the answers on what health care system would be best, but do know that by eliminating from consideration a system that is proven to be effective and cost-saving is not right.

There is really no conflict between a single player being as good as she or he can be and the good of the team, just as there is no conflict between a single payer system and the common good of Americans. The problem seems to be an American passion to put the individual over the common good. The star player makes much more money than his or her teammates, and the health care industry does not like a system, like single payer, that would cut into their individual profits.

The neighbor to my son, on the diary farm across the road, has just returned from a trip for the bull business venture that he also operates. However these heavy rains tonight will make the ground too wet for the tractor depositing cow manure on the rows so the worms can be placed to make vermicompost from cow dung. In the dairy, vermicompost, and farm businesses there are no roles to put the individual over the common good. The single player is a team player and the single payer is part of the common good.

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