Healthcare, Democracy, and Elites

From the Exponent, newspaper of Baldwin-Wallace College:

George W. Bush graduated from Yale. His father was a millionaire. His grandfather was a multi-millionaire and stock trader. George W. Bush went to elite schools. He received higher marks at Yale than John Kerry. In his current presidency he is surrounded by other people who have come from elite schools, have astounding degrees and such, and yet, George W. Bush cannot pronounce the word “nuclear”, 12% of households are food insecure according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 4.7% of the population is unemployed, and in September there were 1,271 mass layoffs, according to www.bls.gov.
Now, this makes me wonder about people who have faith in the government, and the elites.

In this country and many others, instead of us ruling, we are supposed to trust elites to rule for us. But it seems they aren’t doing so well.

It seems we are faced with two choices about who makes our decisions. It’s liberal or conservative; Public sector or private sector; government bureaucracy or private capitalist. In a sense, a big business executive or governmental elitist who depends on donations from big business executive to get elected.

I can choose to go to a hospital run by a capitalist who charges me as much as possible, and gives me as little service as he can get away with, or if I live in Europe, I can choose to get my healthcare from a hospital run by a politician or bureaucrat who is not subject to recall or any public scrutiny.

I reject both the right-wing free market capitalist approach, and the left-wing state capitalist approach. You see, I am a communist, and I advocate the socialist system of economics. Communism is an ideology that rejects the notions of elites entirely. Socialism is about empowering everyday people.

The socialists and communist of this world look at the problems and have a simple solution: Democracy.

Take the healthcare system, as I have previously discussed. The Socialist answer to the problem, is putting hospitals under community control and public ownership. This means, first of all, that hospitals will not be run to make money, hospitals will be run to ensure people have the healthcare they need. This will make healthcare free, as it is in every other industrialized country in the world, if one doesn’t count the taxes which replace the medical bills of these nation’s citizens.

But once the hospitals are in nationalized, we have not gone far enough. They must be socialized. Hospital boards must be elected, like school boards. Hospital executives must be subject to immediate recall at all times if the care they are giving to patients is not at full quality. Hospitals must be connected to the communities. Each physician should have his patients fill out performance evaluations rating his performance, and politeness toward the patient.

On top of that, the money the government spends should be pushed into these new socialized hospitals, so they never suffer from a lack of funding. The way the funds are spent in these hospitals should be up the local hospital boards who are subject to immediate recall, and democratic control.

This would be truly “socialized” medicine. You see, the root word of “Socialism” is the same as the root word of “Society.” The root word of Communism, is the same as the root word of “community.”

Socialism and Communism are not about empowering elites. Socialism and Communism are about empowering the people to have control over all aspects of the society in which they live in, especially the aspect that affects them the most, the economy.

Think it doesn’t work?

This healthcare plan is working great in Cuba. A child born in Cuba has a better chance of surviving than a child born in the United States, according to the CIA World Fact books statistics about infant mortality. Cuba, a small unindustrialized nation, has a life span just months shorter than that of the United States, the richest country in the world. The percentage of people with AIDS in Cuba is one sixth of what is in the United States. Cuba’s medical system in renowned in South America, and in Cuba a medical college exists which trains doctors from all over the world. Cuba offer to send 2,000 English speaking doctors to Louisiana during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. It’s shameful that our government did not accept such an offer.

Whatever objections you may have to the socialist government of Cuba, or the way that the Cuban Communist Party is leading Cuba, one must admit that Cuban healthcare has been a success. In Cuba, the doctors are subject to community control. There are hospital boards. The healthcare system has been democratized, and it is overwhelmingly serving the people there much better than the healthcare system of the United States is serving us.

No, I don’t plan to move to Cuba. Rather I will fight for such a system to be adopted in the United States. When Cuba had its revolution, it was an impoverish, crime ridden island. We are already the richest nation in the world, and we have loads of hospitals. Imagine the possibility if the people were put into power in the field of healthcare.

Yes, it seems that when Socialists and Communists look upon the problems of the world, they have the same solution that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin had many years ago: Democracy. However, we seek to expand this democracy from board rooms of corporate executives. We wish to bring democracy right to your doorstep!

REPRINTED WITH THE PERMISSION OF EXPONENT CAMPUS MEDIA