Obama Socialistic Agenda
14 Sep
I am astounded at the hypocrisy that politics instills upon the general public when it comes to anyone/anything being called “socialism” or “socialistic”. Obama just happens to be a Black person, and any disagreement w/ his policies immediately lands us “right winged” individuals as ‘Racists”. Oh please.
I’m for common sense.
Def. of Socialism: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
[source]: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism
Description of ‘Socialized Medicine’: According to health economist Uwe Reinhardt, “strictly speaking, the term ‘socialized medicine’ should be reserved for health systems in which the government operates the production of health care and provides its financing”…
With the Government now owning the Automobile industry having paid off their debt WITH debt, it owning the banks and paying off their debt w/ debt, and now going after the Health Care system… seems ‘socialized’ to me.
Therefore, call it what you may – but down to the nitty gritty of it all, Socialism is defined socialism no matter how much you deny it.
Spending another Trillion dollars to “fix the problem” is to only blindly cover up what is really causing the problem. I agree with Sen. Orrin Hatch when he says that 85% of Americans already have Health Care. Why not fix the system in place by enforcing regulations w/o spending American Taxpayers money and moving our Country further in debt?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a health care plan that will remove the freedom I have to schedule an appointment, know that I will be looked at with quality care and spend as much time as I want speaking with a Dr. Otherwise, there will be LONG waits at the Dr.’s office. There will be lower quality Health Care, there will be MORE money spent OUT of our pockets!
Socialistic plans are never the answer.
Michael Moore’s philosophy of “Well, if you call it ‘Socialism’ you might as well call Libraries ‘socialistic’” is a naive approach to the reality at hand. We all – both right & left winged “parties” have to look at the BIGGER picture. Government run programs and plans such as this Health Care plan removes little by little the American Public’s freedom and INDEPENDENCE that we founded this great nation upon. By agreeing with Obama’s Health Care plan is to agree with stripping America of Independence.
You do have the right to disagree with this “right-winged” opinion and follow Obama’s Plan, but when it’s all said and done, you will not have the freedom to turn it back around. The more the Government owns the less our voices are heard. Think about it. We might as well hand over our Independence back to England and Rewind back the clock to having a King… oh “mighty” King Obama! 
An interview from Glenn Beck’s radio program, with Ezra Taft Benson speaking:
If this doesn’t open our minds as to what’s going on, nothing will!
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Hello– I am the physician who shared a small e-mail exchange with you a while back when a certain initiative was the talk of the town, and though we disagreed, I appreciated that you were good natured about it and seemed to have some openmindedness about the issue that not everyone on your side had. I have kept you on my blogroll and checked out your blog from time to time, often very intrigued by your thoughtful introspective thoughts or your funny posts.
But I have to come out of the woodwork on this post, because I think it is tragic how this health care debate has been misportrayed by the likes of Glenn Beck. Please hear out my perspective as someone who is (I think) a fairly savvy and compassionate player in the health care system, practicing both at a top 10 academic medical center and at a neighboring VA in oncology.
Rebecca, I refer to your definition of socialism from Reinhardt: the government “operates the production of health care” and “provides its financing.” Let me stress: ONLY the VA and prison systems really abide by this.
Many of my cancer patients at my academic hospital have Medicare if they are over 65, where the government “provides its financing” but has nothing to do with operates the production of health care.
The others fall into the camp you and I are in, with private insurance where the government has a role in neither production or financing, just a minimal regulatory role.
Or, they have MediCal if they are poor, again where government only “provides its financing.”
Who among these patients ultimately has the most choice? Medicare patients. Yes, with money supplied by the government. And with signficantly fewer limits on what I as a doctor can prescribe for them. And with remarkable patient satisfaction. (Ever hear the folks cheer: “Keep the government out of my Medicare! ) And might I add with an overhead in the single digit percentage range.
And who has the least choice? The privately insured– yes, even less than MediCal patients. I have to fight tooth and nail, going through several rounds of back and forth (time I cannot spend on seeing other patients, might I add) to get cancer treatments approved, and they often aren’t, even if I can provide evidence for them working. I actually admire the Kaiser system, but their structure would not let you seek out a second opinion without paying for it yourself, something Medicare pays for.
And then what happens later, after a privately insured person gets sick? If they lose their job but then are lucky to survive, they are out of luck– COBRA lasts for 18 months (and it’s very expensive), and they can’t just opt into Kaiser like you and your husband could when it’s up. Pre-existing conditions would keep them out, or at least would in a silly fashion keep the insurance from having to pay for the health condition that bothers them the most. The extreme cost would keep them out.
The viable policy plans on the table do nothing to make government the producer of health care and the funder. Nothing. They strengthen rules to make sure private insurers play fair. (I.e. no pre-existing conditions, no cruel going back and refusing current care if a person didn’t list a trivial condition on their application, like menorrhagia) That individuals on the market (like you! God forbid you were on that market with a past history of cancer, or MS, or …) have options. And to pay for some more research into making sure that the treatment provided actually is scientifically proven.
Even the hated public plan idea, which I can assure you is not going to pass, was just an escape valve for people who can’t get insurance through their employer– and even then was going to be structured most likely to let people opt into PRIVATE insurers with a basket of benefits. You know, like Congress gets.
Rebecca– please understand the heartbreak I have had to deal with in my practice. So many young people BANKRUPTED by their unfortunate diagnoses of cancer. So much avoidance of care just to save money (penny wise, pound foolish– this really happens). So much suffering that was AVOIDABLE.
And BTW, where have I had the _least_ trouble getting the chemo drugs I want for my patients, where I have never had to fight to admit them them they needed hospitalization?When they needed social care assistance? The VA. Don’t worry, neither I not Obama or any serious pundit is arguing for nationalizing the VA, which is the most socialisstic of the systems.
But I am saying STRONGLY that the dichotomy of public = bad and private = good, or even that public = no choice (see Medicare? almost any doc or hospital you want) and public = choice (where Aetna with its 40% overhead rejects the claims I make to help my patients) is a comppletely false one, and that unfortunately some people are using this dichotomy to their own ends without thinking it thought.
I love aspects of capitalism, believe me. Drus are developed by profit-making companies, thank goodness. But where does that research start? Often in labs that were funded by our tax dollars. I do not want to shut down drug companies, as it is drug companies that have brought to market the remarkable drugs that HELP MY PATIENTS. And if they don’t develop drugs that HELP MY PATIENTS, it hurts their bottom line.
But the insurance industry is profoundly broken, and as time goes on a premiums rise, more companies will rationally drop their insurance plans. And what then? I’d rather have Medicare. Or a more regulated BUT STILL PRIVATE insurance plan. But NEITHER of these is socialism. Really.
One final note: I trust, but want to make sure, that you are also seeking information about the policy debate from various sources. I mean, I love my Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and love to laugh when they impugn people like that excreable Wilson (hehe) AS WELL as silly people on the Left, but I also make sure to read various sources– WSJ, NYT, McNeil-Lehrer, even the Economist for an outside perspective– so I’m sure I get a well-rounded view. This issue is too important not to.
This oncologist wants desperately to be able to treat my patients the best way I know how, and I fear that the solutions profferred by the likes of Beck will ironically make health care as a whole more expensive and less availablle over time– for this is exactly where the status quo is headed, it is indisputable.
I don’t want to have to say no to a young patient who needs chemotherapy, but I have had to do this.
Phew– an essay. I’m sorry. But it was cathartic. I wish you the best.
Rebecca, I enjoyed your article and I found M.S.’s comment intriguing and understandable. But I also found her use of the phrase “the likes of Beck” humorous and the citation of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert predictable. Stewart and Colbert have trained their viewers to reject opinions other than their own. Trust me, I know…I was an avid watcher until I realized what they had been doing.
The core of the argument, however, is giving Government more control and power than it already has. Liberals have displayed an alarming double standard. They screamed and screamed and screamed during the Bush Administration that W. had TOO much power but now that someone they like is in control…they want to give him ALL power.
I do NOT care how many heart-wrenching stories EITHER political party tells us in front of their teleprompter. They want my vote so they can get more power. I don’t play that game. You may like who is in control right now, but imagine if they got an unbelievable amount of power and then handed it to someone that you don’t like—-someone that would abuse it.
No. I will not—-I will NOT—-give ANY political party more power than they already have.
So how do we solve this Health Care Debate? We open it up so that insurance companies can compete with greater intensity, we lower health care costs through reform, we figure out ways to lower doctor’s legal expenses and prosecute those who bring false claims against doctors.
On top of that we need to be grateful. No joke. I lived in various parts of Russia for a couple of years and I’ve seen the devastating effects of socialism (call it what you will, but it’s whenever the Government—-a bureaucracy of people who want to gain power more than give care).
We have SO much and yet we complain that our house needs to be remodeled when many people outside of America don’t have homes of their own. Or we say that we need new clothes for the Autumn season when most are extremely lucky to have a change of clothes. We have clean water straight from the tap, public education, good food, safety and an amazing medical system.
We have SO much and yet politicians want us to believe that we’re constantly in a crisis of some sort or another and if we don’t do something about it soon, or vote one way or another…it’s someone’s fault.
Actually, lately….if something doesn’t work out for this Congress, it’s either because of Bush, Conservatives, Republicans, Sarah Palin or Racists.
Me? I’d rather just work and enjoy the great things in life. We have SO much!
Seth– We agree on some things! I hope you don’t think I’m trying to trot out the most dramatic stories from my day to day job as an oncologist, though, because these issues are day to day reality for so many of my (solid, honest, hard-working, God-fearing) middle class patients. The last thing someone with cancer needs is to be worrying about how to pay the bills–medical and other. But that is what the status quo does to so many of them.
–Legal reform? Sure. (Though, not such an issue in my field, oncology– very expensive care, but we just don’t get sued that much. But it is an issue in other fields and does affect how my peers choose their specialities and where they practice, affecting access to certain kinds of care).
–”Health reform to save costs?” Sure, but that’s awfully broad. I do believe in scientific analysis of the effectiveness of treatments so that we don’t waste money. But the devil is in the details.
–”Enjoy the great things in life?” Most definitely! And for the vast majority of us, that does apply. But much of illness strikes randomly. I am less concerned about how to deal with people seeking care for their high blood pressure than those who get a catastrophic disease– trauma, cancer, etc.– who will not have the support they need financially to continue to benefit from our nation’s (potentially) outstanding care, and to avoid bankruptcy. That really is the point of insurance- as with fire insurance, it is to protect us from a terrible, rare, unpredictable event. This is my primary motivation for thinking universal access– ***and I would be very happy with a basic, high deductible, catastrophic plan (which would be cheap across the board, and would be a great product for companies to compete against each other to provide to us)***. But in counting our blessings, I just don’t think Russia is the best comparator or benchmark as we talk policy. We should set our sights higher! (while we acknowledge our great blessings in other ways)
A point I keep noticing is missed– who among the Right is decrying Medicare in a vociferous way? None. We all acknowledge there are demographic challenges that make funding it into the future difficult, but beneficiaries are OVERWHELMINGLY happy with their care, and they SHOULD be– generous benefits and broad access (indeed, better than I’d probably provide in my catastrophic plan). And this program, which has broad bipartisan support– started under LBJ, but then again Nixon wanted to expand it to universal care– has certainly not propelled us to a socialist state in any meaningful way, nor has it slowed the progress of medical science. What it has done is protected the health of our elderly population and kept millions from abject poverty (along with Social Security).
The status quo is untenable, as we will see as companies (again, rational, stock price-watching companies, as they should be) continue the trend of cutting out insurance. Better to plan ahead, and not react to the crisis after the fact.
I don’t want you to take my comment on Stewart and Colbert the wrong way– Beck and O’Reilly are similarly entertaining, but are no less propagandist, they have their place among the critics and satirists. Nothing wrong with that. My point is just to remind all of us to look at all sides and to get past some of the more absurdist vitriol and slippery slope arguments and read some of the more careful analysis. I ain’t a raving liberal, and I can adopt some of the conservative points into how I formulate my opinions. (But do you really think Beck and O’Reilly wouldn’t have gone ballistic against a Dem yelling “You lie?” I do share some of your cynicism about the motivations of political parties in general, but it’s the system we have, and our responsibility to keep them honest.)
Thanks for your thoughts. Best wishes.
Keeping this short and simple from an ADD…
Thanks for that great picture! Love what it says- I cannot believe how we are being called racist right wing nuts for having opinions.