No Socialized Medicine, But Socialized Finance

Jonathan Raban has a point here:

Last month, the country went into convulsions over the passage of the very modest healthcare reform bill, from which the ‘public option’ or ’single-payer system’ was excluded for ideological reasons because it represented ’socialised medicine’ and the intrusion of the ever-enlarging state into people’s private lives (the NHS was held up by Republicans as a dreadful example of what might happen). It’s the responsibility of the individual to insure his or her health: were the state to do it, it would be an infringement on personal liberty and the Bill of Rights.

Since 1933, banks have been posting signs outside their doors that say ‘Deposits are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government,’ and the FDIC is, in effect, a national wealth service, with taxpayers guaranteeing the private capital of all bank customers, domestic and foreign. Since I’ve never heard a murmur raised against the institution, everyone seems happy to support a system of socialised money, on a scale far more generous than Britain’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), with its – recently raised – limit of £50,000 per account.