I am a family doc who has been practicing medicine in San Diego for over twenty five years. Democrats, progressives and independents must recognize that the increasingly catastrophic circumstances of our medical system are but one result of the false public policy ideology which has sold the nation on the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of government action and the primacy of the free market in determining the provision, manufacture, and distribution of just about everything. The financialization and commercialization of our culture has produced successive attempts at deregulation and privatization of formerly public functions, i.e. schools, prisons, utilities, hospitals, sanitation, even military and disaster relief functions. At least until the elections of 2006, a goodly majority of ordinary Americans bought into this frame of reference. The cummulative disasters in the public arena under the current Republican admistration have set the stage for a correction in these attitudes and beliefs. In such a context it is important to look at recent proposals for change in the health care sector from an economic and public policy perspective.
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