Civilized medicine

Aug/04/09 23:44
I’m titling this post “Civilized Medicine” as opposed to “socialized medicine.” What I’m really going to discuss is Obama’s healthcare plan, but I wanted to start out by demolishing that old strawman argument that attempts to dismiss new ideas by calling them “socialist.” A civilized society owes its citizens the right to a healthy life. But that’s just semantics, and a thorough review the Obama’s proposal is warranted. When I first started to write this entry, I thought I could do it one article, albeit a long one. Instead, to make it easier to read, I’ve decided to do it over four parts over the next few days.

  1. Why. I want to get some facts out there about why the country needs a healthcare reform.
  2. Myths. There are so many myths being promulgated by various talking heads, I’d like to take on some of them. Dispelling myths is always fun.
  3. My proposal. If they made me healthcare czar, what would I want?
  4. The plan. With so many stories being bandied about, I thought I’d state what is being proposed. And no, nowhere in the proposal could I find anything about socialism.

What is civilized health care? The World Health Organization describes three goals for a good healthcare system:

  1. Good health–”making the health status of the entire population as good as possible” during a citizen’s whole life.
  2. Responsiveness–responding to citizens’ expectations of respectful treatment by health care providers.
  3. Fairness in financing–ensuring financial protection for everyone, with costs distributed according to one’s ability to pay.

This is civilized. It’s not socialized.

So, stay tuned. The first chapter will be out tomorrow.

Note: I’ve decided that the “Plan” for healthcare is so fluid and subject to so much tweaking, I’ve decided to make it the last chapter of this discussion.


By Michael W Simpson


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