From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: The Decline of America: A word about Health Care
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 22:56:59 GMT

The Decline of America: A word about Health Care

The government disinformation repeated (wittingly or not) in some
recent posts regarding some health care articles in the _Decline_
series cannot be dealt with fully in one response. A Health Care
series sometime after the election will attempt to deal with these
issues at greater depth [refs/files by request by email until then].

For now the most important item needing to be addressed is the fairy
tale that would not die, about "inefficient socialized  medicine" which
we should "[not] throw money at."

In fact, we need not concoct strange analogies with a National Food
System; the rest of the industrial world *has* National Health Care so
we may observe the results in the real world.

In fact, it turns out that the "inefficient" National systems are FAR
MORE EFFICIENT than the wasteful "market" approach, quite aside from
the fact that the citizens of the rest of the western industrial
nations also enjoy universal access while tens of millions of
Americans have virtually no access to health care and the great
majority of Americans are undercovered if covered at all.

Since facts contradicing the official Washington Party Line need to be
repeated 10 times to have a chance of even being heard, again:

    at we need to do is just pump more money in the the social welfare
    system (S.W.S.) to raise the standards.  This has time and again
    proven to be inadequate--or else why is the system still in such a
    poor state?!

It will cost *less* money to cover all Americans with a National
Health Plan. Of the 19 major industrial nations, *only* the U.S. does
not have a National Health Plan with universal coverage.

Anyone but the most fanatic ideologue [or else, similarly, a consumer
of the mainstream media] would, therefore, naturally turn attention to
this unique feature of the American health "system" among the
industrialized democracies to address the question of why the American
health "system," despite the quite real problems in any and all
systems, is so uniquely, and superlatively [highest cost, *and* least
number of people covered *and* worst health statistics (infant
mortality, etc) and on and on] a catastrophic failure.

The "free"-market dogma fed to us daily by the large corporations in
the business of selling mass-audiences to client advertiser companies
-- i.e., the `Free Press' -- including not only fairy tales about its
"efficiency" but the very notion that human needs like health care can
be proposed in an sane discussion to be run like a business "product;"
the inability to percieve the most basic truisms about systems which
givens their inherent natures maximize profits and not human welfare,
in fact, the former contradicting the later, are similar features with
deep roots which can only begin to be addressed by a host of series of
article merely begining with the present _Decline_ series.


Harel Barzilai
Co-founder, Co-moderator, misc.activism.progressive (MAP)

==================================================================

    "It is a matter of logic that government-run systems are
    inefficient, and the fact that the highly bureaucratized private
    sector system in the US is vastly more inefficient is therefore
    irrelevant..."

==================================================================
[excerpted from _Year 501: World Orders Old and New_, part II, by Noam
Chomsky in _Z magazine_, July/August 1992. Email
harelb@math.cornell.edu for more info about Z magazine]
==================================================================

[...]

Even today, the general population often fails to understand its 
inner wants.  The current debate over health care provides some 
useful illustrations.  A case in point is a major article in the 
_Boston Globe_ (Feb. 9) by Thomas Palmer, an outstanding 
journalist, well to the liberal side of the spectrum.  Palmer 
opens by reporting that almost 70% of Americans prefer a 
Canadian-style health-care system, according to polls.  But they 
are wrong, for two reasons. 

The first reason is technical: it was clarified by President 
Bush, who "emphasized the importance of avoiding the problems of 
bureaucratized, universal-care systems like Canada's." It is a 
matter of logic that government-run systems are inefficient, and 
the fact that the highly bureaucratized private sector system in 
the US is vastly more inefficient is therefore irrelevant.  It 
is, for example, of no relevance that Blue Cross of Massachusetts 
employs 6680 people, more than are employed in all of Canada's 
health programs, which insure 10 times as many people; or that 
the share of the health dollar for administrative costs is over 
twice as high in the US as in Canada. <<<NB: Nancy Watzman, 
_Multinational Monitor_, May 1992.>>>  Logic cannot be confuted 
by mere fact. 

More interesting is the second reason, which is "spiritual." 
There is a "difference in outlook" north and south of the border; 
there are "theoretical differences that students of the two 
nations see in the psyches of the average American and Canadian." 
These students explain that the Canadian system would cause "the 
kind of rationing of health care that Americans would never 
accept... The US system rations by price; if you can afford it, 
it's there.  Canadians ration their health care by providing the 
same care for everyone and simply making those seeking elective 
or less urgent procedures wait." 

Plainly, that would not accord with "American-style impatience," 
one "student of the two nations" explains.  Imagine, he says, 
that "no matter how poor you are, you will sit in a hospital bed 
and receive care as the richest in your community.  No matter 
what contacts you have and no matter how rich you are, you can 
get no better than that." Americans would never accept that, we 
learn from this expert (incidentally, the president of a 
health-care consulting firm).  Further insights into the American 
psyche are given by the deputy director of a trade group of 
commercial health insurers.  The 70% of Americans who don't 
understand their own psyches are not sampled; obviously, they too 
need instruction in self-awareness. 

[...]

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