> The rich can still pay for private care if they feel like it. No one
> is stopping them. How "socialized" medicine plays out with
> pharmaceuticals continue to be private remains to be seen.
>
> And then there the deeper layers: the very costly and often
> ineffective type of medicine practiced in the west, the effect of
> ill-making life/work/stress/environment on health... It's a lot more
> complicated than just "who pays."
The pharmaceuticals are indeed a problem. Even in countries with national health systems, AFAIK, the pharma companies are private. But we can't get socialism all in one leap.
As for the bad health effects of the existing capitalist system, there's no doubt that they are real. But there are also myriad other causes of disease, of course, and what we need is a health system for dealing with *all* diseases, however caused, which gives the poor an equal chance with the rich.
Preventive medical care is a great thing, of course, but even the best preventive measures can't prevent everything.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)