My guess is that no one who has gone at least a year without health insurance is against health care reform. Everyone that I know who has spoken or written against universal health care already has insurance.

Should we be suprised? Probably not.

The latest predictable, cliche-ridden anti-health care reform editorial comes from John Howe, the wealthy and well-insured retired editor of our local newspaper, the Laconia Citizen.

The editorial was ostensibly about Michael Moore’s film, Sicko, but it really was an excuse to dust off all reasons why the insured don’t want to provide medical care to the uninsured. John writes like someone who knows he is entitled in a general way, and certainly entitled when it comes to the issues that divide rich and poor. Only a health care “have” could write with such insensitivity to the plight of the “have nots.”

His editorial follows a conversation I had two nights ago with a young man who was limping rather awkwardly out to a friend’s car.

“What’s the problem, Dave?” I asked him.

“I got two bad disks in my back from work,” he said.

“Gonna have someone look at it?” I asked, hopefully.

“Nope. No insurance and no one will take me.”

We talked about some other options, like pretending he had just landed from Mars without a social security card and showing up at some hospital’s emergency room. In that case, someone might look at him, but he still wouldn’t get the surgery he needs to repair his back.

I know Dave is a hard worker — he does yard work and painting for the wealthy landowners in Mitt Romney country, Wolfeboro, NH. But now he can’t work and his financial situation — near poverty level already — can only get worse.

In the Live Free or Die Hard state — and elsewhere across this Promised Land — Dave is out of luck. And people like John Howe intend to keep it that way.