This past month I flew back to Vermont, where my dad lives. He is 91 years old now and just broke his hip. So he has a long recovery in front of him - and I was there to help him along and bolster his spirits when he needed some encouragement.

My dad is in a rehabilitation center where he is learning to "hop" on a walker and not put any weight on the bad leg. He gets tired, but he perseveres, and he is making progress. He has a strong will to live. He maintains an enthusiasm and interest in life, athletics, politics, and his family and friends. I got him a Kindle, but I am not sure he has figured out that yet!

Without the great professional staff at his rehabilitation center, the physical therapists, the nursing assistants who make sure he is comfortable, the nurses who look after him, the EMTs who got him to the hospital, and the doctors who supervise his care and progress, my dad would be dead now.

Let's put this another way: Without Medicare, he would be dead now. He wouldn't have much of a chance if we actually took U.S. Senate candidate Clint Didier's advice: "We've got to get rid of this protecting the weak."

My father-in-law also is one of those weak people we are protecting. His dementia is getting worse. He walks around, enjoys other people's company, and watches the world as his window onto it shrinks down. He gets careful attention and care

at his assisted living place and good health care for his various ailments. He also would be dead without Medicare.

My father-in-law served in the Pacific during World War II. He was a naval officer at Iwo Jima. His hearing has been shot ever since. He ended up with his military pension and Medicare and that's about it. Should we neglect my father-in-law because he didn't save much money? Too bad for him, but he is on his own! Perhaps he can appreciate the "freedom" that entails.

This is not just about old people. A colleague of mine just lost her husband. She has infant twins. As a survivor, she and her twins are entitled to Social Security benefits. If she were on her own, without Social Security, she would be in dire economic straits. Her emotional loss and devastation of the past year would be compounded with the fear of simply not being able to make ends meet.



Surgery saved me

Growing up, I was a weak and sickly kid. When I was 4, I didn't know it, but I was pretty close to the end with something called perforated Meckle's diverticulum. Surgery saved me. That surgery was provided through our medical system, even then a mix of public and private investments and services. That surgery, through this public-private health care system, enabled my recovery.

So I have our government to thank for my own life, and the lives of my father and father-in-law, and the economic security of my colleague and her babies. Look around and you realize that our ability to live and prosper, or make do, is only because we depend on each other.

As kids, we are utterly dependent on our parents, our teachers, our friends, relatives, and neighbors, our local fire station and police, and our government. As adults, that dependency may seem to lessen, but in fact, it is the web that holds society together so that we can work, prosper, get educated and have fun, with all the benefits brought to us by generations before us and by our civil society. As old people, our health and well-being and quality of life depend even more on the investments of others, the systems of finance and health care that are possible only through our government.

When we talk about government, we are talking about our lives, our well-being, the comfort of our parents and the progress of our children. My dad is not on his own, not now, never has been, and never will be, to the last of his days. And that is true for all of us, no matter how much we protest that "we are on our own!"



John Burbank is the executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute (www.eoionline.org. His e-mail address is john@eoionline.org.