What's
Wrong with the Healthcare System?
An
Interview with Wolf Larsen
from the book Capitalism Sucks
Question:
So what's wrong with the healthcare system?
Answer:
God, where do I start? The biggest problem
with the healthcare system is that it's all about money. Health care for profit is a contradiction,
healthcare for profit is an oxymoron.
Sure, a small number of elite people get excellent quality medical care
because they have lots of money. But the
rest of us have to make do with rationed health care.
Q.
What do you think of health insurance
companies and HMOs?
A. I think they're a bunch of Mafia. The CEOs of these HMOs and health insurance
companies are becoming billionaires by denying people health care. The less medical care they deliver the more money
insurance companies and HMOs make.
Q.
So what should be done about health
insurance and HMOs?
A. Get rid of them. If you need an operation that should be
between your doctor and you. Some corporate
bureaucrat shouldn't decide whether you get a lifesaving operation or not. The bureaucrat is not concerned about your
health. All the corporate bureaucrat is
concerned about is the insurance company's or the HMO's bottom line. Your health care should be between you and
your doctor. Your healthcare should not
involve corporate bureaucrats who look for excuses to deny you medical care.
Q. So with what would you replace the
health-insurance companies and HMOs?
A. I would replace them all with quality medical
care for all. If you need to see a
doctor you see a doctor. If you need an
operation you get an operation. If you need
to see a specialist you see a specialist.
Take all the bureaucrats out of the process. Corporate bureaucrats shouldn't be able to
decide whether you get a life-saving operation are not.
Q. But isn't that socialism or communism?
A. That's right!
That's what it is. In order to
have free quality medical care for all we're going to have to have
socialism. We're going to have to get
rid of capitalism. Because capitalism is
all about denying people medical care so that the insurance companies and HMOs
can make a handsome profit.
Q.
Why should we give people free quality medical care?
A. Because free quality medical care should be a
basic human right. Everyone who works
should receive free quality medical care because they pay taxes. Under capitalism you pay taxes to keep lots
of people in jail, you pay taxes for endless wars, you pay taxes for a police
state with two million people behind prison bars. Instead of spending money on war and
warehousing huge numbers of people behind prison bars for smoking marijuana we
should provide everyone with free quality medical care. There is another advantage of giving everyone
free quality medical care. Instead of
having like a zillion bureaucrats for every doctor you have a lot more doctors.
Q. But if we provide everyone with free medical
care there will be huge lines at the clinics and hospitals and there won't be
enough medical care to go around – isn't that true? And people will have to wait for months to
see a specialist – isn't that true?
A. We will need to train a lot more doctors,
specialists, and nurses! And going to medical
school or nursing school should be free.
People should be accepted to medical school based on their abilities to
become excellent doctors and not on their ability to pay tuition. We need the best people to become doctors and
nurses, regardless of whether they can pay for medical school or not. And also we need to build hospitals, not
close them. Under capitalism they keep closing
hospitals. They close hospitals and
build prisons.
Q.
Wouldn't providing free quality medical
care for everyone be very expensive?
A. Not really.
Because all the HMOs and insurance companies that are sucking money out
of the medical system would be gone. All
the parasites would be out of the medical system. There should only be bureaucrats to check the
quality of medical care, as opposed
to ten million bureaucrats deciding who gets medical care and who doesn't. Right now you have an endless number of bureaucrats
rationing medical care. Fire most of the
bureaucrats and train more doctors and nurses.
It's simple. Less bureaucrats. More doctors and nurses.
Q.
I still think providing free medical
care for everyone would be more expensive than the existing system – don't you
think so?
A.
I doubt it. But we also have to define our priorities. Do we want to spend lots of money on war and
warehousing huge numbers of people in prison for smoking marijuana or do we
want to spend more money on health care, education, and things like that? Under capitalism there's always war. And the war budget is just devouring money – endless
amounts of money. The so-called war on
drugs is also devouring huge amounts of money.
We need to get rid of capitalism, and replace it with a system where
everyone gets free quality medical care.
Q.
But what do we do until we get rid of
capitalism?
A. We fight for free quality medical care for
everyone. The way we do this is we break
with the Democrats and the Republicans and we form a workers party. A workers party will fight for free quality
medical care for everyone. Working
people are very powerful. Working people
don't realize all the power that they have.
Working people white and black and Latino, native born and immigrant, male
and female, gay and straight, should all be united in fighting together for
free medical care for everyone. But we
certainly won't get free medical care for all without fighting for it.
Q. But some of the Democratic politicians are
proposing universal health coverage.
Won't that solve the problem with our medical system?
A. No it won't.
What the Democrats are proposing is universal health insurance. All that means is more bureaucrats. Many times the health insurance companies
refuse to pay all of our medical bills. Often
health insurance companies deny medical procedures that people need. Providing universal health insurance coverage
is great for the insurance companies. It
will put more bureaucrats on the payroll, and that will be great for the CEOs
of insurance companies. What universal health
insurance will not do is provide free quality medical care for everyone. Universal health insurance will just bring
more bureaucracy. We need free quality
medical care for all, not endless insurance bureaucracy.
Q. But if we provide free quality medical care
for everyone won't there be people abusing the system?
A. I don't think so. Nobody wants to go to the hospital. Nobody wants an operation unless it's
cosmetic. Nobody wants to go to the
dentist and have a drill stuck in their mouth.
This is one thing you don't need to worry about people abusing. Now on the other hand if we decided to have a
program giving out free beer that would be different. (Laughs)
Q. So cosmetic surgery wouldn't be covered under
free quality medical care?
A. Unless someone got into a disfiguring
accident than no – cosmetic surgery would not be covered under free quality
medical care for all. If you're ugly and
you want cosmetic surgery well that's your problem and you have to pay for it
yourself. (Laughs) But if someone got into an accident and they
were disfigured – particularly in the face – then I think free quality medical
care should cover that. If a child is
born with a cosmetic disfigurement that would make life difficult for him – especially
if the disfigurement was in the face – then I think free medical care should
cover that.
Q. But
don't you think that capitalism delivers good quality medical care?
A. Absolutely not. There's waiting rooms filled with people
waiting endless hours to see a doctor.
All over the world there is just endless people waiting in endless long
lines to see a doctor.
Q. All over the world? You've experienced medical care in other
countries?
A. Yes I have.
Mostly in the Third World. I had
an operation done in a third world country because I couldn't afford to have it
done in the US. The operation didn't
turn out very well. Anyway, in Third
World hospitals I've seen some pretty crazy things. Unsanitary conditions. Endless people waiting endless hours for
medical care. And that's in private hospitals
and clinics. In the public hospitals in
both the United States and in Third World countries the waits are even
longer. There are many doctors all over
the world that are very committed to their work. But a lot of times all you get is just a
little bit of the doctor's time after a long wait. A doctor is in such a hurry to get to all the
other patients waiting to see him that a lot of times the doctors don't take
the time to tell you everything that you need to know. This can have fatal consequences, or it least
it may compromise your recovery from your medical problem.
Q. But don't your experiences in Third World
countries prove that we should keep the medical system the way it is?
A. Quite the contrary is true. Americans are flying to Third World countries
to get medical procedures and operations because they can't afford to get
medical care in their own country. Often,
the insurance company won't pay for an operation they need. That's ridiculous! You have the richest people in the world
flying to America for their medical care, and you have Americans flying to
Third World countries for their medical care because they can't afford medical
care in their own country. At any rate,
medical care in America is not all that good for the vast majority of
Americans. It might be good for someone
with lots of money. But as I said before
the rest of us are getting rationed medical care. Let me take this time to move beyond
America. I think everyone on this planet
who works deserves free quality medical care, and everyone who wants to work should
have the right to a job. So basically
everyone in the world should have the right to free quality medical care.
Q.
But how are Third World countries going to afford that – free quality medical
care for all their citizens?
A. In some ways Third World countries have many
similarities with United States. Many
Third World countries are spending lots of money on their militaries. There's also lots of corruption in many Third
World countries. There's lots of money
there that could be used for free quality medical care and for other things like
education. There are some Third World
countries that are too poor to provide the people with free quality medical
care for all. After workers revolution
occurs across the world it will be the responsibility of the first world socialist
countries to aid the poorest of the Third World countries in providing free
quality medical care for their citizens until they're able to afford to do it
themselves.
Q. In some countries in Western Europe with free
health care don't they pay lots of taxes?
A. Not all of the tax money in those countries
is going to things like education and health care. Those countries also have militaries. They may not be spending as much as the
United States on their militaries, but they're still spending on military. It would be interesting to see where that tax
money is going to. Under socialism
everyone will be contributing to the wealth of society because everyone will
have the right to a job, and thus there will be less taxes and thus there will
be plenty of money for free quality medical care for all without big taxes. Capitalism is very wasteful of
resources. Get rid of capitalism and
provide free quality medical care for all.
Q. Don't public hospitals already provide
medical care for the poor?
A. I went to a public hospital in United States
over and over again trying in vain to get medical care. Many other people have had similar
experiences with public hospitals.
Perhaps public hospitals will attend to you if you're dying. However, what often happens is that poor
people can't get the medical care that they need for health problems until
those health problems become very serious.
Poor people often return again and again to some public hospital or
public clinic trying to get treatment for a medical condition that's
minor. But since there's limited
resources minor medical conditions often don't get treated and poor patients
are turned away from those public hospitals and clinics without medical
care. As a result their minor medical
conditions become worse and later that poor person is in the emergency room
with a life-threatening condition and needs an operation right away. This is bad for the medical system as a
whole, and it actually increases the costs of medical care. It also is bad for the poor people
themselves. And maybe I shouldn't call
these people poor, because many of them have jobs, but they can't afford to pay
their rent, the groceries, and the
medical bills. Medical care is just too
expensive because the system is based on a profit system that's
dysfunctional. Public hospitals in Third
World countries so far in my experience have been better than public hospitals
in the United States – which is mind boggling.
They were better because you actually got medical care. The US spends huge amounts of money on its
war machine, so there's not much left over for healthcare.
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