Posted on 12/20/2001 9:51:48 AM PST by Christian B
I was in Maine recently debating single payer with John Ross, MD, president of Physicians for a National Health Program. The Maine legislature has established a commission to recommend whether and how to adopt single payer in that state, and there is a referendum on the ballot in Portland asking the City Council to do everything possible to influence this commission to favor the state take-over of health care. The debate was sponsored by the School of Social Work at the University of Southern Maine, so you can imagine what the crowd was like!
The debate was instructive for learning how ideological the single payer crowd is. Most of us avoid using the term "socialist" to describe these folks, because it seems inflammatory. But after experiencing Dr. Ross, and studying the PNHP Web site, I would say "socialist" is too mild a term. These people are clearly Marxist in ideology, and don't mind using extremist terminology.
Ross, for instance, kept equating "for-profit" with "right-wing." There is a quotation at the head of the PNHP Web site that reads, "Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy."
A presentation posted on the site by Karen Palmer includes this sentiment: "Whether we like it or not, we are going to have to deal with the persistence of the narrow vision of middle-class politics. Vincente Navarro says that the majority opinion of national health insurance has everything to do with repression and coercion by the capitalist corporate dominant class."
Maybe it's time to start calling a spade a spade.
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