This is taken from the proposed health care bill HR 3962:
• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what specialty you have, you’ll all be paid the same.
(thanks, AMA!) Free market captialism good bye, individual liberty and prosperity good bye…hell, why work hard if everyone else that sits on their butt reaps what you sew for your labors?
• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors’ time, their professional judgment, etc.
Maybe the government can tell me when to go to the bathroom, breathe, go to work, stay home or how and when to wipe my butt and the butt of the freeloader I am paying for with the fruit of my labors?
• Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries. Government control? What happened to limited government?
• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
If the government says you don’t need a wheelchair, you get to walk!!! If you voted for this communist dictator maybe you should walk.
• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions. Government can make mistakes and get away with it but don’t you dare!!!
• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.
• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!
It’s not proof that we’re headed towards socialism – no.
This is at best "lemon socialism," where the US government takes over some failing, near-bankrupt part of the capitalist economy and tries to keep that part of the economy from collapse — not for the benefit of "the people" or for the benefit of some revolutionary working class.
Instead, "lemon socialism" in the United States almost always involves the Federal Government (or sometimes state and city governments) intervening in the economy for the benefit of the big corporations and the rich campaign contributors who basically control the government.
In the case of the Democrat health care "reform" bill, however, we don’t even have "lemon socialism," because the government DID NOT take over
(a) the health care industry – the hospitals, doctors offices, etc.
(b) the big pharmaceutical companies, or
(c) the big health insurance companies.
Intead of the government taking over and replacing these capitalist industries — which is what would be done under a truly "socialist" program — the government under the Democrat health care plan passed in 2009 will use its coercive power to guarantee the continued profits of these same private sector industries.
Yes, a little bit of additional regulation goes along with the huge government subsidies.
But the main impact of the Democrat health care "reform" bill is to force tens of millions of uninsured individuals to buy health care coverage from — the private insurance industry.
That’s not "socialist" in any leftwing sense of the word.
It’s closer to being "fascist," in that the government is joining with private entities to guarantee the profits and even guarantee the markets of capitalist industry. This is "state capitalism," perhaps, if we don’t want to call it "fascist." It’s the government and private capital cooperating to ensure the profitability of the capitalist system, but without much heed for the so-called "free market."
If you’re naive enough to believe that capitalist corporations ALWAYS operate through "free markets," and if you think that capitalist corporations therefore ALWAYS will protect and nourish "free markets" when they might earn bigger profits in another way, you may think that the US government intervening in the health care insurance markets today is "anti-capitalist."
But it’s not. It’s just capitalist businessmen finding another way to earn big profits, through governmental favors rather than "free market" competition.
And there’s nothing in the nature of money or profit that makes cash earned with the government’s help any less desirable to capitalist investors than cash earned through free competition. To a good capitalist, money = money.
======================
" the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."
— Marx and Engels, "The Communist Manifesto"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
See also
http://socialistworker.org/2009/03/06/marxist-view-of-the-state
It’s Obama’s fault.
No
Stop posting Facts, because you are making the Progressives irate!
All your claims are lies.
Every one of these things exists already in normal insurance companies.
It’s true, Obama is steering the country towards socialism when the success and prosperity of our country was born from capitalism. It’s a terrible thing that doctors and other high paid professionals should be treated the same as sanitation department workers.
That’s great. How long have you been a proponent of(DHP) The Democratic Health Plan?Also doctors can’t take kickbacks from Pfeizzer?Thanks.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Welfare, etc are all programs of socialism along with the Post Office and Amtrak. What determines whether a country is a socialist country or not is the percentage of government spending to GDP.
Yes.
It is Socialism.
Obama has won, so far.
His Goal is a Communist Empire.
First, I would like to preface this by saying this: The democrats and the republicans called out for health care changes. Changes that were primarily along the lines of cost. Now, no one said or agreed to free health care for all. Or a turn to socialism. In fact, if Hillary were in office, this crap would have never even been brought to the table. This crap wasn’t even brought to the table from Obama. He let the republicans and dems write a way to reduce healthcare costs and they came up with this bullshit.
Instead of the wild propoganda of socialism et ludium…..and the tea party and guns, why aren’t BOTH parties holding their elected leaders responsible for coming up with this garbage??
I AM DEM AND I DO NOT SUPPORT SOCIALISM! WAKE UP, GENERALIZING ISN’T GETTING YOU ANYWHERE. Who came up with the crap in the healthcare bill? Both parties.