I think a lot of the support for this or that cause (fighting cancer, diabetes, etc. etc. ) has become an industry with overhead costs for administration, for communication, for advertising: An industry that has to be fed with a continuing infusion of dollars. An industry that marks its success by an increase in dollars from one fund raising event to the next. Gosh if a "cure" for cancer or whatever was actually to occur the "industry" that exists would suddenly collapse. Would be interesting to see that occur and how those in the industry would respond and regroup.
Arthur -----Original Message----- From: futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca [mailto:futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2013 1:36 AM To: futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca Subject: [Futurework] Re: The American Health Care racket Ed wrote: > Here's something I posted to my blog of four years ago on American > health care. > > [....] > > The American Healthcare racket > Sunday, Aug 2, 2009 > > I managed to find myself in front of the TV watching Bill Moyers > Journal. > > Moyers dealt with health care reform. His guest was Wendell Potter a > former VP of a major US health insurer, CIGNA. Potter had left CIGNA > because he could no longer morally tolerate how his company and other > insurers were handling the health of Americans, and because of the > kinds of lies they were telling the public. > > [snip] For-profit insurance for medical and health care has long seemed to me a contradiction and entirely the wrong model. And under the current paradigm for business success, insurance is essentially a play in high-stakes finance. The actual bones, kidneys and afflictions of the insured are externalities, rather like the expensive and wasteful cow in a financial model of the dairy industry. Once anything gets established as an "industry", particularly a for-profit industry, there emerges an organized campaign to ensure that the "industry", however problematical, is fed and grows; the bigger the "industry" becomes, the more powerful becomes that campaign. That's true regardless of the social harm that may accompany the actual role that such an industry plays on society. In that light, the present US medical care system is a pit of malfeasance and the privatization of prisons is a potential and emerging horror. Not to mention privatized for-profit armed force like Blackwater (now Xe). About the time of your blog post, I quoted here on FW from this piece: http://www.truthout.org/072609R where there are some details about Wendell Potter's epiphany and conversion. - Mike -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ mspen...@tallships.ca /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
