In “Chinatown,” private detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is genuinely baffled by the greed of the already unimaginably wealthy Noah Cross (John Huston). Gittes cannot comprehend why the elderly Cross (a fictional take on the very real William Mulholland) would orchestrate a host of illegal activities - murder among them. When Cross says “The future,” he means securing an opportunity to become richer still.

Gittes is hamstrung by a lack of empathy: He really can’t put himself in this man’s Guccis. It’s like trying to understand why Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield has just announced rate increases of up to 39 percent even after reporting a fourth quarter (2009) profit of $2.74 billion. They’re doing it because they want more. They’re doing it because they can.

“They” being the appropriate word, since the Supreme Court has determined that corporations have the rights, if not the responsibilities, of people. But there is, in fact, a living, breathing “they” there, as Gertrude Stein probably would have had better sense than to put it. Officers of insurance companies, like their compadres in the banking world, live Noah Cross-like lives. They couldn’t possibly eat any better. There’s nothing that their $20 million, $30 million, $40 million salaries/bonuses/stock-option packages will allow them to buy that they couldn’t already buy with the goodies they received last year, and the year before that, and the years before that...

Yes, that means government-run health care. As in Medicare.

And let the howling commence: Socialism! To which I can but reply, damn straight. Socialized medicine. A lot of people find that frightening; after all, who’d want to live in a social democratic hellhole like, say, Norway or Denmark? But put the tarred word aside for a moment, and ask yourself if the average 55-year-old American wouldn’t like to become eligible for Medicare tomorrow. You know what he’d like even better? To become eligible for Medicare today. Then ask the average 35-year-old American how he’d like it. Then ask the average 25-year-old mother how she’d like it if she and her baby were covered by Medicare.