Extending health care will just feed more people into a corrupt medical system. We need a new paradigm.

As presently setup the medical system is at best a disease maintenance system; I argue that in reality it is a disease promotion system.

Many chronic diseases result from tha SAD (Standard American Diet) and poor life style choices — lack of exercise, lack of relaxation.

Currently, a drug is prescribed to alleviate symptoms. Over the long term the drug leads to additional problems, for which another drug is given. Thus big pharma is assured increasing profits by a system that ensures increasing debilities

MD’s see these chronic diseases as a single condition which can be treated by drugs of choice. Their med training and HMO’s reinforce this paradigm. The MD is not rewarded by finding what the causes of the problem are; they are trained to only recognoze a disease state — not to prevent disease. If tests show absence of disease, the patient is presumed healthy.

HMO’s stint MD’s to the point that they spend only about 5 minutes with a patient. On one visit I asked my primary why my finger nails looked so bad. Without even looking, he left the room, remarking that lots of patients ask him that. I saw a naturapathic doc who told me I wasn’t digesting protein properly; a protein supplemnent fixed the problem without side effects.

The food inustry under the capitalistic imperative to increase profits has depleted processed foods of nutrients and added colorings, flavorings, preservatives which go a long way to promoting cancer, diabetes, heart disease — the list goes on.

WBAI in New York runs a diabetes/blood pressure workshop to educate people to improve their health status. People meet in groups throughout the New York tri-state area. There’s a group leader who is not a physician, but who has been counciled by physicians in proper food choices, stress reduction, and monitoring blood sugar and blood pressure. People in the program lose weight, feel better and can lower medications. I believe this is true people power.

In my opinion these wars on various diseases just reinforce the existing paradigm. These warriors never talk about these diseases caused by food, toxins and stress. By looking for a “cure” they delude us into thinking that food, toxins, stress don’t contribute to these diseases — so we’re free to browse the supermarket shelves, filling-up on lifeless, toxic foods, assured that a “cure” for cancer is imminent.

I’ve heard it said that the best indicator of a nation’s health is the width of the income gap — the smaller the gap the healthier the people; the wider the gap, the more the illness.

Alvin

Really good post.

I’ve been using the term state capitalist, to describe the bailout. It isn’t a 100% accurate term, but it beats it being called socialism, as by liberals and conservatives. Mischaracterizing socialism has a long history, as done by capitalists and Stalinists.

Obama is hostile to the universal healthcare, despite his rhetoric. His economic advisors are from the University of Chicago (Friedman).

With Dems coming to power, it’s time to escalate the fight for a labor party.

Regards.

“Most Americans do not choose socialism because they are bamboozled into thinking that it would not be in their interest.”–

Not true; it is because they are bamboozled into believing it is the same as communism. Regardless of who’s interest is served, anti-socialism is as deeply ingrained in US propaganda as believing the US is the wealthiest, smartest, most honorable nation on Earth. It is part of America-as-a-religion doctrine, or America’s religion, if you will. That is what makes socialism an extremely difficult concept to promote.

Even though socialism is a more accurate way of describing what American economic society actually is, with its many layers of corporate welfare, altruistic beliefs about charity, and so forth (democracy is actually the belief in the greatest good for the most people achievable) the word ’socialism’ has been thoroughly stained with the smell of shit by propagandists. Nor can we or should we overlook that capitalism and the ‘free market’ is as much a government-regulated economy game as any in history. Capitalism simply could not function if it weren’t for the government, no matter how loosely defined or organized, intervening in keeping it stable. Raw market forces are as devastating as flash flooding or storms at sea.

Socialism is exactly like the insurance paradigm: pooling the risk among many to reduce the devastating impact upon the few.

One other problem with promoting socialism is that the American mindset cannot look its own selfishness in the face. American selfishness is tweaked and fed by the propaganda that socialism is the same thing as communism. They are, of course, very very different. But good luck getting the majority of Americans–who tend to think in terms their grandparents did–understanding this. Tradition is tradition.

Dear Susan,

What a wonderful article. I’m sixty-five and have been a communist most of my life, but I only joined Gus Hall’s outfit in….1989!

What has been dawning on me over the last several years – as I’ve been personally experiencing the sicknesses and deaths of myself and loved ones – is what a cutting-edge issue health care truly is. “Of course!” I’ve always known there’s a reserve of radicalism among seniors, but I’d always known it intellectually, not viscerally.

Howsoever, it’s been better than fresh air to read America in Crisis. I’ve long admired physicians for their courage and commitment to life even more than for their intelligence and compassion. In fact, my greatest heroes are Ali, Fidel, and Dr. Kervorkian. In no particular order.

Keep up the very, very excellent work, Susan. We need you.

I agree with your whole enticement of socialism and capitalism in a basis of terms.

I didn’t have a full understanding of socialism until I encouraged myself to read this article, I now get the entire socialist ideology.

Again I thank you, for your contribution to understanding a capitalism-ruled society.

An absolutely excellent article! Really got my brain cells going! So rare that I read something by a real socialist.

Most people I encounter in “left” circles are what I would call political liberals, that is, a subset of economic liberals. It seems to me that intellectual understanding of socialism stopped in the U.S. in 1910 and in Europe after they attained social democracy. Of course socialism is not social democracy, which is only capitalism with a welfare state added to maintain the system.

I think that it is extremely important that a revolutionary movement develops here, along with other places in the world, because the U.S. with its military power serves as the linchpin of capitalism. The media and the educational system in the U.S. have been extremely successful in retarding the development of socialist thought as well as critical thinking in general. There is so much unlearning and relearning to be done and Rosenthal’s writing is advancing this project.

Thank you so much!