As I write this, I am an inpatient at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center awaiting discharge.  I am recovering from an adrenalectomy, which has cured me of something called Conn's Syndrome, which is a form of Hyperaldosteronism.  This should also cure my hypertension.

The staff here have been wonderful.  I have been well taken care of.  The food was excellent.  The nurse to patient ratios were not bad.  As I was in an endocrinology observation study, as well as an endocrine tumor study, the care was and shall remain, free of charge to me.

This is government health care at its finest.  Many of the loudest voices against health care reform fear a national health service.  They have nothing to fear.  We already have a Public Health Service in the United States and many people are alive today because of it.  Without this service, many more would have died of swine flu.  Many important discoveries would not have been made.  Indeed, if the entire nation's medical structure were part of the PHS, we would be a much healthier nation.

I am usually of a libertarian bent and favor employer provided health care rather than employer provided insurance.  This is the service that Congress gets in its clinic (I am not sure if the Congressional doctors wear the PHS uniform or not).  I would not mind it, of course, if the PHS were nationwide, even if privately funded by employer cooperatives.  They are that good.

I am also grateful to the Catholic Chaplain service here.  Yes, at this federal hospital, there is an active service.  They have been quite caring, bringing me Communion and offering me consolation (and not asking about my politics beforehand, which should be a lesson to some of our bishops here and in Rome - I feel truly blest that Cardinal McCarrick, Archbisop Wurl and Bishop Loverde do not partake of the madness coming from Archbishops Burke and Chaput).

I will be going home today to rest, recuperate, wrap presents and hopefully make it to Christmas Mass (although I hear there may be an ice storm coming our way, so maybe not).

I wish you all a Merry Christmas as we celebrate the fact that the Lord Jesus is our Light and Our Salvation in this darkest of seasons (calender, health and economic).