We are so close: Finally a chance to join the civilized nations and an opportunity to show the rest of the world that we practice what we preach, that we can be our brothers' keepers.

If you haven't guessed what I am talking about, it's the fact that the health care reform has passed the House and now heads for the Senate. It still has to travel on a rocky road through that chamber, and the Dems might blow it all on the abortion issue.

However, it is obscene that one out of five dollars out of our pocket goes to health care insurance. Yet as our co-pays increase, there are limits to what we can get even if we pay through the nose, and many folks have to put their health care costs on credit cards that charge 15 percent to 20 percent interest, and they end up in bankruptcy. This land of such promise and once a land of opportunity for so many is being brought to its knees by the corporate need to make huge profits for its stockholders.

This issue is not about socialism but about government finally taking a stand to control rising health care costs and just plain gouging and greed. Much of the financial crisis we are in now would have been mitigated if government regulators had been doing their jobs. Instead the last hopeless eight years were spent looking for weapons of mass destruction that led to the quagmire known as Iraq.

Isn't it logical that government, the representatives that you and I elected to voice and act upon our concerns, does everything in its power to stop harm to citizens? That's the reason, for example, that the Environmental Protection Agency was created. All you have to do is read Charles Dickens on the great assault on our environment that occurred during the Industrial Revolution. Pristine rivers became the sewers for industry, smokestacks belched, drenching cities and the country alike with toxic soot.

These anti-government zealots with Chicken Little cries that the socialist sky is going to swallow us up are so disingenuous that they would be the first to complain if the social compact they've agreed to should fail to meet their needs. I can't imagine a country without good roads, police protection, fire services, parks, food inspection, etc. What do they think that is, if not a form of socialism? Even the creation of an army is a social agreement, compact, contract, etc., that citizens agree to as a society. It is impossible to avoid socialism unless you live in a cave believing you can do everything by yourself.

Endorsements by once-conservative groups like the AMA and AARP should tell us they know something most conservatives are trying to deny: health care insurance is out of control and something needs to be done. Do I expect government to do everything for me? Of course not — but government representing us has the power and obligation to regulate against the excess of greed whether it's among bankers, Wall Street or health insurance, especially when it affects the welfare of its citizens and thus the nation.

The problem is that conservatives really believe the myth that you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps, but the reality is that, much like in the Middle Ages when there was mostly rich and poor, many Americans have no bootstraps left. The middle class keeps shrinking and those are the folks who pay the taxes that support both the rich and the poor.

Another conservative myth is that they get no help from a "socialist" government like ours. What hooey. Corporate welfare is well documented and most of their lobbyists should be in jail.

An example is an ad I saved after a trip abroad. And I quote from it, "Congress must pass legislation to end unfair taxes for airline passengers and make corporate jets pay for the air traffic services they use." The ad goes on to say, "When Congress first created cost-based aviation taxes, there were only 1,800 corporate aircraft in service. Today, there are 18,000 ... and the government predicts 10,000 more in the next decade." It ends showing typical taxes charged from Atlanta to New York: passenger plane, $1,881; corporate jet, $167. I rest my case.

Writer/historian Orlando Romero may be reached at Nambe1@aol.com