Socialized Medicine

What is Socialized Medicine? Simply it is Medicine which is controlled by the Government. It is the NHS in the UK. Physicians are employees and they get a salary from the Government. They work  40 hours a week, they get a vacation, health benefits, pension etc. They are like the postal service, the subway conductors, the Ferry Boat operators. Yes they are like IRS agents and frankly like all other Government employees. You are sick, well if it is 5 PM and they are off duty hope the replacement is on time and has some clue what they are dong. If you die then like the VA they get a bonus and your family gets the ashes, at best. That way no one can check to see if they lost your body.

Now along comes a group of docs who want to do that in the US. They are Progressives but in reality they are Socialists. I know because my grandmother was head of a Socialist Party in New York. I grew up in a Socialist group and we went to Public Health clinics with white porcelain metal chairs.

Now Eureka reports:

In a dramatic show of physician support for deeper health reform - and for making a decisive break with the private insurance model of financing medical care - 2,231 physicians called today  for the creation of a publicly financed, single-payer national health program that would cover all Americans for all medically necessary care. Single-payer health reform, often called "Medicare for All," has been a hotly debated topic in the presidential primaries, thanks in part to it being a prominent plank in the platform of Sen. Bernie Sanders. The new physicians' proposal is strictly nonpartisan, however. The proposal, which was drafted by a blue-ribbon panel of 39 leading physicians, is announced today in an editorial titled "Moving Forward from the Affordable Care Act to a Single-Payer System" published in the American Journal of Public Health. The editorial links to the full proposal titled "Beyond the Affordable Care Act: A Physicians' Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform" and the names of all the signers, and it appeals for additional physicians to add their names as endorsers. The proposal currently has signers from 48 states and the District of Columbia. "Our nation is at a crossroads," said Dr. Adam Gaffney, a Boston-based pulmonary disease and critical care specialist, lead author of the editorial and co-chair of the Working Group that produced the proposal. "Despite the passage of the Affordable Care Act six years ago, 30 million Americans remain uninsured, an even greater number are underinsured, financial barriers to care like co-pays and deductibles are rising, bureaucracy is growing, provider networks are narrowing, and medical costs are continuing to climb. "Caring relationships are increasingly taking a back seat to the financial prerogatives of insurance firms, corporate providers, and Big Pharma," Gaffney said. "Our patients are suffering and our profession is being degraded and disfigured by these mercenary interests."

Now how much will this cost? We know that under the ACA we are running at about $12,000 per person per year. Then simply 30 million yields $360 billion! No problem, just up Medicare monthly amounts as the Baby Boomers enter. 

I am always amazed by Socialists. Somehow there will always be someone to foot the bill, not them. Perhaps they just want a 9 to 5 job. They should have gone to the Post Office.