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Hank
Sounds like what my Dad's heart surgeon said upon retirement. He basically said, "I am no longer free to practice medicine."
WE'RE DOOMED, with that said yes much of what Ayn wrote is slowly fulfilling her prophecy. A slouching towards mediocrity if you will. 51% of professional science degrees (engineering,medical,etc . . ) being granted in the U.S. are to foreign students (or at least thats what I read). As optimism dampens (blame the media and public education) people quit taking risks and applying themselves to long range goals.
There are good doctors and bad doctors those who
love medicine and those who love money more...
There is the AMA who would put us all under a dictator
with themselves at the top of the pile
Then there are those who would fight tooth and nail to prevent
such things from happening
Those who love our country and God more than mammon will always be good doctors...
Those who love medicine more than the state will always be
good doctors..
The state not with standing..
While the state may bring out the best and worst in people
some people will not waver regardless...their character
is independent of the state, peer pressure and consensus
People are not all Pavlovian enough to be swayed by external
circumstances..
However the govt that governs best governs least..and power corrupts
imo
If anyone reads this could you let me know your thought; review it for me? Ah-gracias.
Socialized medicine is the natural and inevitable outcome of government control of medicine, regardless of the worthiness of the motive.
AR ping
For the last 20 years or so, I have read "Atlas Shrugged" at least once per year... Obviously one of my favorite books.
I always considered it not a novel, but a documentary. And always felt it should be required reading (and required to be understood to graduate) in High School.
Unfortunately, all too many NEA members think that Wesley Mouch , Balph Eubank etc. are the good guys in the story and that the communists that inherited, then destroyed, the factory where John Galt developed his motor had the right philosophy.
I wish I could afford to buy the copyright for Atlas Shrugged and put it in the public domain so everyone could read it... (even though Dagney would slap me and Frisco would beat me up for doing something like that ;-)
One of Any Rand's stories IS in the Public Domain though: "ANTHEM"
You can download a free copy here:
http://www.blackmask.com/cgi-bin/newlinks/page.cgi?g=Detailed%2F2106.html&d=1
There is an unrelated thread over at Lucianne today where there is a lot af Ayn Rand "slamming" going on.... I'd hate to even imagine what the DUmmies would be saying.
ping
ping
My dad was an OB-GYN who practiced from 1945-1978 in central California. His patients for the first 20 years were lower-middle-income ladies married to blue-collar husbands who worked hard to support their families so that their wives could stay home with the children.
In the 1960s, that began to change. Dad began to see pregnant, unmarried, unemployed high-school dropouts on welfare in the waiting room. They often abused drugs, and ignored his warnings about what this could do to their unborn children. They viewed having babies as certification of their adulthood, but felt no obligation--indeed, seemed to have no concept of what was needed--to raise their children responsibly, or to behave with responsibility themselves. They were paid generously by the state to keep having babies, and so had no motivation to do more difficult things like finish high school, develop employment skills, or get married, which would have resulted in a reduction of government handouts.
Careless of their own and their babies' health, they began to have problems during delivery and their babies began to be born with drug addictions or damage. They sued my dad, the hospital, anyone they could find to blame for the results of their own irresponsible behavior. Dad, who had never been sued before, was sued twice in 1975. Though he was acquitted in both cases, his malpractice insurance went from $6,000 to $36,000 in 1976. To cover part of the cost, he raised his pre-natal, delivery, and post-natal care fee from $300 to $900, and stopped writing off part of the fee for his poorer, paying patients. (Medi-Cal, California's medical welfare program, paid $140 per patient at that time.) His fellow OBs began to refuse to accept new patients; many gave up the OB side of their practices altogether.
After a third lawsuit in 1978, Dad retired at only 62 years old, leaving the work he had loved. Many of his paying patients wrote letters begging him to reconsider, since they liked and trusted him and knew they'd have trouble finding a new obstetrician. He and his responsible patients paid the price of the system imposed by the government and the welfare queens it created.
Any time I hear someone complain about greedy doctors, I make her listen to this whole story. And I thank any doctor who treats me, and express sympathy for what I know he's going through.
pinging all over
check back later, looks interesting.
Of all the great and wondrous advancements of the 20th century I would have to say the greatest was the discover of penicillin and anti-biotics.
Was this achievement made in the private sector or with government sponsorship?