I don't see a sudden collapse, Arthur. I think they'd simply regroup and move
on to something else.
Ed
________________________________
From: Arthur Cordell <denar...@sympatico.ca>
To: mspen...@tallships.ca; "'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,
EDUCATION'" <futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2013 12:48:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The American Health Care racket
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/ ^^-^^
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