'Socialized' Medicine

"The term ['socialized medicine'] was popularized by a public relations firm working for the American Medical Association in 1947 to disparage President Truman's proposal for a national health care system. It was a label, at the dawn of the cold war, meant to suggest that anybody advocating universal access to health care must be a communist. And the phrase has retained its political power for six decades."

Fact: Most industrialized countries, and many developing countries, operate some form of publicly-funded health care with universal coverage as the goal. According to the Institute of Medicine and others, the United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care.

How did this happen?

Medicine = $$$ 

The Corporate Capitalists want to squeeze the last drop of blood out of the American Worker. You get sick and you either pay or die. You work all your life and when you get old you loose everything the first time you need an operation. It is a predatory system. The people involved in its administration are heartless bastards who have little or no regard for human suffering, or human life.

The Veterans Health Administration, the military health care system, and the Indian Health Service are examples of socialized medicine in the stricter sense of government administered care, although for limited populations.

Medicare and Medicaid are forms of publicly-funded health care, which fits the looser definition of socialized medicine. Part B coverage (Medical) requires a monthly premium of $96.40 (and possibly higher) and the first $135 of costs per year also fall to the senior and not the government.

A poll released in February 2008, conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health and Harris Interactive, indicated that Americans are currently divided in their opinions of socialized medicine, and this split correlates strongly with their political party affiliation. Two-thirds of those polled said they understood the term "socialized medicine" very well or somewhat well. When offered descriptions of what such a system could mean, strong majorities believed that it means "the government makes sure everyone has health insurance" (79%) and "the government pays most of the cost of health care" (73%). One-third (32%) felt that socialized medicine is a system where "the government tells doctors what to do". The poll showed "striking differences" by party affiliation. Among Republicans polled, 70% said that socialized medicine would be worse than the current system. The same percentage of Democrats (70%) said that a socialized medical system would be better than the current system. Independents were more evenly split, with 43% saying socialized medicine would be better and 38% worse. According to Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health, "The phrase ‘socialized medicine' really resonates as a pejorative with Republicans. However, that so many Democrats believe that socialized medicine would be an improvement is an indication of their dissatisfaction with our current system." Physicians' opinions have become more favorable toward "socialized medicine".

A 2008 survey of doctors, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, shows that physicians support universal health care and national health insurance by almost 2 to 1.

There has been much debate in recent years about whether health care is a privilege or a right. The Corporate Capitalists say that only those who can afford health care have the right to it. 

The Hippocratic Oath is one of the oldest binding documents in history. Written in antiquity, its principles are held sacred by doctors to this day: treat the sick to the best of one's ability, preserve patient privacy, teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation, and so on. "The Oath of Hippocrates," holds the American Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics (1996 edition), "has remained in Western civilization as an expression of ideal conduct for the physician." Today, most graduating medical-school students swear to some form of the oath, usually a modernized version. Indeed, oath-taking in recent decades has risen to near uniformity, with just 24 percent of U.S. medical schools administering the oath in 1928 to nearly 100 percent today.

HIPPOCRATIC OATH: MODERN VERSION

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

(—Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.)

In most medical schools, students recite the Hippocratic Oath together to mark the start of their professional careers. The soon-to-be physicians swear to uphold the ethical standards of the medical profession and promise to stand for their patients without compromise.

Though the oath has been rewritten over the centuries, the essence of it has remained the same: "In each house I go, I go only for the good of my patients."

But the principles of the oath are under an "unprecedented threat. Doctors are under constant pressure to compromise or ration their care in order to please lawmakers, lawyers and insurance companies.

Doctors are increasingly expected to decide which expensive tests and treatments they can and cannot provide for their patients. Their dual role as examiner and cost-cutter can then potentially compromise patients' care, particularly when insurers and hospital administrators urge physicians to only perform "medically necessary" treatment.

The average person thinks that 'medically necessary' care means all care that might potentially be beneficial. But the reality is that it's a wide-open term. 

Care may be denied for a variety of reasons, including whether patients have consented to cheaper treatment options through their health insurance plans. What that means, is that doctors who ration care on behalf of insurance providers may simply be following their patients' wishes — even if patients are not aware that they're receiving sub par treatment.

In the real world, the choices aren't made clear in the employee benefits office. In the real world, the cheap health plan and the expensive health plan both promise you 'medically necessary' care and you don't really know what that means. So you sign up for this care and you think, 'Aha! This one's cheaper than the other. And it's promising medically necessary care. You don't really know that one car is a Cadillac and one car is a Chevy. These two plans are being presented to you as Cadillacs. And so you say, 'I'll buy it.' But in fact, in terms of the care it makes available, it's cheap because it's a Chevy, not a Cadillac.

Talking about potential trade offs in care is a conversation that doctors and policymakers need to have, because it's inevitable that our health care system will need to find ways to set limits on care.

We cannot afford anything like what we're spending on health care today, and we're certainly not going to be able to afford what we're projected to spend in the future. We spend almost a fifth of our national income today on medical care. And within 25 years, unless we change dramatically, we're going to be spending a third of our national income on medical care. And we're doing that by borrowing from our nation's future.

What does this mean to you?

If we continue to turn our backs on the idea of "Socialized' medicine, Corporate Capitalism will continue exploiting and promoting sickness - until no one will be able to afford to get well. The vampire will have sucked the last drop of blood out of its victim. And, the victim will die. 

That victim is you! So, when you hear the Republicans, and the Conservatives, say that "Socialized medicine is Communism," what they are really saying is, "Fuck you!" 

And, that's the Truth!