Many would like this day to come to the US:
President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday his government will nationalize Venezuela’s privately owned hospitals and clinics if they fail to reduce health care costs.“If the owners of the private clinics don’t want to obey the laws, then the private clinics will be nationalized,” Chavez said in a nationally televised speech. “They will become part of the public health service.”
Venezuela has a two-tiered health system in which wealthier, insured patients often can afford prompter, better treatment at private hospitals.
“This is the evil of capitalism,” Chavez said of the health care costs at private clinics. “We have to regulate this progressively, transforming the savage capitalist market into a market of solidarity.”
Related posts:
- Single-payer: Forcing health care down people’s throats?
- Single-payer: "The flaws are unacceptable"
- Single-payer in Sweden: A cautionary tale
- Administrative costs and single-payer
- Single payer ills, part 2
- The single-payer backdoor
- Single payer myths
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 2 comments }
Heil Chavez! Let me let you in on a dirty little secret…all the capitalist pig private sector doctors who had the means have already left Venezuela and are practicing in the US. And, get this, they left BEFORE Chavez came to power! Once again the US has contributed to brain-drain by too generous immigration policies leaving a relative vacuum of well educated and well-funded local opposition. Chavez is trying to dismantle anyone and anything that might challenge his authoritarian rule, following in the footsteps of his billionaire brother Fidel. By keeping his opposition weak and poor he hopes to solidify his position. It is time for the Venezualan expat community to become more vocal. We can’t hear you.
Once again, a communist is just a thief with a theory and when caught in the act should suffer the fate of his less intellectual criminal brethern.
Comments on this entry are closed.