Do you think capitalism has a future, sir?Reader comment on: The WSJ's MediScare Submitted by Dr Frank (United States), Aug 5, 2011 23:51 Your Marxist bias in medicine persists. Should we eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and the NIH? Heck, yeah. Or is medicine the place where you approve of Marxism. Marxism in any form, we can stipulate here, promotes inefficiency, injustice and tyranny. The dramatic problems afflicting each of these government monstrosities are more than adequate evidence. You invert my argument about smart college kids making rational choices. I never mentioned, nor questioned, humanitarian motivations. In the aggregate, though, more smart people will choose a two or three year course with minimal debt over a ten year course with crushing debt. Should we eliminate government funding here. Again, yes! The anti-trust violations that are unquestioned in the residency selection process would be considered unacceptable anywhere else in our society - and these would cease as would the systematic abuse of these trainees. Additionally, the huge debt loads that med students incur would be cut severely as soon as we stopped subsidizing outrageous tuition bills (as you have recommended when discussing every other area of higher education). You approve government cutting doctors' incomes, and, thereby, dictating prices and salaries? Honestly, sir, would you approve such manipulations in any other context? I'm sure Fidel, Hugo and Vladimir would. Lastly, let's discuss the Dutch experience. The artificiality of WHO data are well-documented (I would happily supply references), and you readily criticize UN bias against the US in every other context. For example, in infant mortality, we start counting lives at the birth canal while other countries wait weeks or months before even considering the event a live birth. Further, the Netherlands is not absorbing vast numbers of third world immigrants. In my training at a major urban welfare hospital, I cared for patients with drug resistant TB, HIV and even leprosy (leprosy!). Lastly, ask the Dutch. They hate their system as do the Canadians, the Brits, the Italians, etc. Are you, in fact, a Marxist? If you are, maybe you should change the name of the site to The Demise of Capitalism. If you are not, I suggest you take off your blinders in medicine. Capitalism would do it better, and, I would suggest, we've never really tried it in this area of the economy that hits each of us at the most personal and most momentous levels. Note: Comments are moderated by the editor and are subject to editing. The Future of Capitalism replies: Makes sense to me. The point I was trying to make in the original post (and perhaps I should have been more clear) is that if we are going to have Medicare, it can't be an unlimited license for anyone in the health care industry to have an unlimited claim on government money. Other reader comments on this item
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