Carl,
Unfortunately, in spite of how it might appear, not every list member is in
favor of a single payer health system, Most probably, there are list members
who voted for Donald J. Trump for president in 2016. Appearances can be
deceiving.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2020 12:05 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] For-profit US ‘health care’
will increase virus threat,Revolutionary Cuba points the road forward
It's called, Corporate Theft. I know that on this list it's like preaching to
the choir, but just in case we have a new naive member, our "national "health
care", puts Profit ahead of People.
And all the time that the People are stomping and cursing about how they're
being taken to the Poor House, the Heads of the Corporate Health Swindlers are
driving to their banks...with sacks of our money in the trunk.
Apparently the American Working Class has Masochistic tendencies since we
appear to enjoy the pain and suffering of our "For Profit" health system.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/7/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://themilitant.com/2020/03/07/for-profit-us-health-care-will-incr
ease-virus-threat/ For-profit US ‘health care’ will increase virus
threat Revolutionary Cuba points the road forward article BY ROY
LANDERSEN Vol. 84/No. 10 March 16, 2020 ACN/RODOLFO BLANCO CUÉ Clinic
in Camagüey, Cuba, in March. Through its neighborhood doctors, nurses
and special programs put in place since outbreak of coronavirus, Cuba
has mobilized to confront new disease. Unlike the for-profit system in
capitalist countries, in Cuba no one is left on their own. figure
Clinic in Camagüey, Cuba, in March. Through its neighborhood doctors,
nurses and special programs put in place since outbreak of
coronavirus, Cuba has mobilized to confront new disease. Unlike the
for-profit system in capitalist countries, in Cuba no one is left on
their own.
ACN/RODOLFO BLANCO CUÉ Clinic in Camagüey, Cuba, in March. Through its
neighborhood doctors, nurses and special programs put in place since
outbreak of coronavirus, Cuba has mobilized to confront new disease.
Unlike the for-profit system in capitalist countries, in Cuba no one
is left on their own. figure end The coronavirus contagion is now
spreading faster outside China, where it first appeared in December,
than inside. The Chinese regime’s extremely aggressive lockdown of
hundreds of millions slowed the advance of the disease for now, but by
March 2 the highly contagious COVID-19 strain had spread to at least
82 countries. The new hotspots are in Iran, South Korea, northern
Italy and Japan.
COVID-19 is a new disease, and that makes it more dangerous. So far no
government — except revolutionary Cuba — has mobilized all its
resources to prepare and organize its people to fight it.
The death toll as of March 4 was 3,221 and confirmed cases were over
94,000. The march of the virus is compounding economic, political and
social crises facing capitalist governments and working people around
the world. The only good news is that the mortality rate so far is
relatively low.
In the biggest slump since the 2008 financial crisis, world stock
markets dropped steadily for a week. Finance ministers and central
bankers rushed to assure wealthy investors they were readying new
“stimulus” measures. But since interest rates remain near zero from
previous stimulus efforts, there’s little room for anything
significant.
Despite attempts by Beijing to restart production after the biggest
quarantine in history, factory production there remains crippled. The
extent of the industrial shutdown in China and its effect on
production elsewhere is a sharp reminder of the limits of
“globalization.”
Authorities in Iran have reported the second highest number of deaths,
77, and 2,336 coronavirus cases, but working people there think these
numbers are significantly undercounted. Trying to deflect public
attention from the government’s responsibility for the quick spread of
the disease there and to the surrounding region, Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani claimed fears about the virus are the result of “the
enemy’s plots.”
But one in 10 Iranian members of parliament have tested positive and
one has already died. Public trust in the Iranian regime has been
further shaken after the earlier brutal repression of protests by
workers and youth against the Iranian rulers’ wars abroad and economic
crisis at home, as well as the government’s effort to cover up the
Revolutionary Guard shootdown of a Ukrainian jetliner.
Opposition to rulers in Iran, Iraq
“We have a very negligent government,” Hamid Bahmani in Sanandaj,
Iran, told the Kurdish publication Rudaw.
“Now is the time for the state and all the other media outlets to
heavily focus on the coronavirus,” Sanandaj pharmacist Dr. Ramin
Husseini said. “One more reason why the virus spread so fast was that
the virus was hidden from the people after some people who had
returned to Iran from China turned out to be infected with the virus.
It was never announced.”
In Iraq, where people frequently visit back and forth with Iran,
coronavirus cases are beginning to turn up. The government responded
by shutting down all schools, universities and other public spots
through March 7. They thought this would also mean the end of
widespread protests against the government that have rocked the
country for months. The opposite happened. Many of the students headed
straight to protest centers in Baghdad and Diwaniya.
“The real virus is Iraqi politicians,” 18-year-old Fatima, a medical
student from Baghdad, told Rudaw.
Outraged by the government’s refusal to prepare for the virus, the
protesters began transforming the medical facilities they had set up
to deal with assaults by the cops and Tehran-backed thugs into centers
to deal with COVID-19.
They’ve distributed leaflets and organized lectures on coronavirus
prevention, while volunteers have handed out free medical masks.
They’re dispensing gloves and sanitizer. And volunteers in biohazard
suits are lining up protesters and taking their temperatures.
“Even in normal times our health care system is totally run down,”
Fatima said. “Now, on top of everything, we have a coronavirus outbreak.”
In the U.S. the government at every level is far from prepared as
cases are beginning to spread. The capitalist rulers see public health
expenditures as a drain on profits. They know they can afford whatever
health care they may need. This is true whether Democrats or
Republicans are in power.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called for Congress to
back the government’s proposal for $2.5 billion to fight the disease,
including funding for developing a vaccine. But at a Congressional
budget hearing Feb. 26 he flatly opposed the suggestion that such
vaccines be made affordable and accessible to everyone.
“We can’t control that price because we need the private sector to
invest,” said Azar, a former lobbyist for the Eli Lilly drug
development outfit.
The U.S. rulers have one special problem that flows from their
position as top imperialist dog. Washington has over 100,000 troops
stationed where the outbreak is spreading, including in South Korea,
Japan, Italy and Bahrain.
As the disease spreads in South Korea, the U.S. military has placed
all its bases there — home to 28,500 troops — in lockdown. The U.S.
and South Korean high commands have also shut down all joint military
exercises “until further notice.”
‘Nobody should be turned away’
“Nobody should be turned away from medical help or hospitalization
because they don’t have health insurance or money or the proper
immigration papers,”
Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party candidate for president, told
the Militant March 3. “We demand government-provided health care at no
cost for everyone.
“If workers won control over production — a fight that will come in
the future as millions join to fight the effects of the capitalist
rulers attacks on our class — the production of drugs and equipment
needed to treat and ultimately vaccinate against the virus would be
made a priority, regardless of profit,”
said Kennedy. “Under a workers and farmers government — like they have
in Cuba — the government would organize a crash course to mobilize
working people to accomplish these goals and make the results
available to people worldwide.”
Kennedy pointed to the inspiring example of internationalist
solidarity given by 256 volunteer Cuban doctors and nurses in leading
the fight against the Ebola epidemic, the opposite of the
profit-driven priorities of the U.S.
rulers. This story is told in the new book by Pathfinder Press, Red
Zone: Cuba and the Battle Against Ebola in West Africa.
article end
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
