But there are many other smaller but no less convincing examples of the bankruptcy of the private sector, or more accurately, capitalism; how it can’t provide even basic services to society. One simple example that comes to mind is the recent cruise ship that became disabled in the Caribbean. The ship had to be towed into port and food had to be delivered to the stranded passengers. There were no calls made to the “cruise ship rescue” section of the yellow pages to find an entrepreneur eager for some business---people would be dead before the haggling over how much each passenger had to pay to have their lives saved ended. It was the public sector that came to the rescue.
There was another example of how the public sector lays the groundwork for the private sector to make a killing. Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal Herbert Pardes, CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital comments on the doctor shortage in the US.
There are about three quarters of a million doctors in the US with a third of them over 55 and expecting to retire in the next 10 years. But baby boomers are retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day according to Pardes which will place added strain on an already stressed health care system that consumes one of the highest percentages of GDP of all the advanced capitalist countries while providing the least all round care.
One of the problems, Pardes argues, is the cap that Congress put on the “number of new doctors Medicare would pay to train” other would be doctors. So the taxpayer is an integral part of the production of doctors in the US who then may end up denying people health care if they don’t have the money to pay for it. Hospitals that teach people to be doctors make up about 10% of the hospitals in the country and Medicare money pays for two thirds of the cost of this doctor training.
Now, President Obama’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and reform (the Committee to Coordinate the Attacks on workers and Boost Profits---CCAWBP) is proposing to cut Medicare’s funding of doctor training further. This will undoubtedly make matters worse. According to government statistics, 10% of the US population lives in an area where access to medical care is “inadequate”, where patients can “wait months to see a doctor” and where no specialists exist.
Pardes’ points out that the future of medical care for US citizens is likely to deteriorate further unless these caps and/or the limitations on taxpayer training of doctors are removed and appeals to Congress to solve the issue.
The increased privatization of what it already a huge business as opposed to a social service in the US is all part of US capitalism’s strategy of putting US workers and the middle class on rations.
“The Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the AMA approves both medical schools and hospitals. By restricting the number of approved medical schools and the number of applicants to those schools, the AMA limits the supply of physicians. In the same way that OPEC was able to quadruple the price of oil in the 1970s by restricting output, the AMA has increased their fees by restricting the supply of physicians.” *
By restricting the number of doctors, the law of supply and demand kicks in and the price of medical care and the salaries of doctors are kept high, the highest in the world. Applicants to medical schools rose school by more than 21% between 2003 (34,786) and 2008 (42,231), according to Perry while the number of students increased by about 9% (from 16,538 to 18,036) over that period. Some 57.3% of the applicants to medical schools are rejected. The profit-addicted mouthpieces of the sickness industrial complex will no doubt argue that this is because standards are so high but they are liars.
Perry makes an interesting comparison to law schools when he writes:
In 1963, there were only 135 law schools in the U.S. (data here), and now there are 200, which is almost a 50% increase over the last 45 years in the number of U.S. law schools. Unfortunately, we’ve witnessed exactly the opposite trend in the number of medical schools. There are 130 medical schools in the U.S. (data here), which is 22% fewer than the number of medical schools 100 years ago (166 medical schools, source), even though the U.S. population has increased by 300%. Consider also that the number of medical students in the U.S. has remained constant at 67,000 for at least the period between 1994 and 2005, according to this report, and perhaps much longer.
The vast majority of bankruptcies in the US are a result of medical issues. The recent economic crisis and high unemployment has made matters worse as in the US, we are dependent on our employers for medical insurance. A friend who is unable to get medical insurance because he is sick regularly visits one of the largest public hospitals in the country. These institutions are generally populated by the poor and low waged, which, in urban areas, means overwhelmingly people of color. My friend, who is white, says that there has been an increase in the number of white folks at the hospital since the crash.
I have another friend who had done quite well for his self the last 8 years but has hit harder times. Him and his partner have been forced to go to the county public hospital because they have no health insurance. He is very pleased with the service he gets there, that the staff and doctors treat him very well, not just medically but personally, “It’s because they actually give a shit” he told me. They aren't motivated by profit.
Obamacare, in a boon to the insurance industry, will add another 32 million people to their rosters; it makes sense that this will encourage people to seek care they previously avoided due to lack of funds. Pardes also points out that the number of seniors needing medical care will double over the next 10 years. The youth that are mandated to buy insurance off the health care industry will be forced to pay for this.
We refer to the health care system in the US as the "Sickness Industrial Complcx." It is not health care; it is a huge business Just like prisons are not “rehabilitation centers” but a system of “warehousing” human beings that capitalism casts aside. From the care itself, to research to the drug industry, every aspect of US health care is profit driven and profit addicted; where profit can’t be made, the taxpayer steps in only that has to be stopped also and the burden of health care to become more of an individual responsibility. In the end though, the taxpayer pays as more and more people are left only with an overburdened public health system.
Medical care is a right and in a civilized society it would be such. But capitalism is not “civilization”; the market is not human friendly.
End Private profiting from healthcare
• One single health collective with publicly owned hospital and pharmaceutical industries that are under the democratic management of health-care employees, patients and the communities they serve.
Free accessible quality healthcare for all
• Fully staffed clinic providing no charge, basic health care in every neighborhood (like Cuba has)
Free Comprehensive health benefits with an emphasis on preventative care:
• Vision care, dental and hearing aids • Women’s health care including birth control, morning after pill, and abortion on demand • Alternative therapies with proven medical benefit such as acupuncture and chiropractic care • Mental health care with emphasis on counseling, not just prescribing pills
Take the profit out of medical research
• Create a publicly owned, democratically controlled organization to do medical research, widening and democratizing the current role of the National Institute for Health • The direction of medical research to be made by elected councils of researchers, health care employees, and community members
Unite and Empower Healthcare Workers
• Create an industry-wide union of healthcare workers to include every worker in a hospital from the janitor to the surgeon • Improve working conditions for healthcare workers: wages, shift lengths, nurse-to-patient ratios • Free medical education: Nurses, technicians and doctors to serve the public without decades of debt • An independent worker or labor party to strengthen the power of working people, the unions and community organizations
* The Medical Cartel: Why are MD Salaries So High?
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