As I ’ve always suspected, Health Care = Communism + Frappuccinos

By MATTHEW HOLT Happy 15th birthday THCB! Yes, 15 years ago today this little blog opened for business and changed my life (and at least impacted a few others). Later this week we are going to celebrate and tell you a bit more about what the next 15 years (really?) of THCB might look like. But for now, I’m rerunning a few of my favorite pieces from the mid-2000s, the golden age of blogging. Today I present “Health Care = Communism + Frappuccinos”, one of my favorites about the relationship between government and private sector originally published here on Jan7, 2005. And like the Medicare one from last week, it sure holds true today. Matthew Holt Those of you who think I’m an unreconstructed commie will correctly suspect that I’ve always discussed Marxism in my health care talks. You’d be amazed at how many audiences of hospital administrators in the mid-west know nothing about the integral essentials of Marx’s theory of history. And I really enjoy bring the light to them, especially when I manage to reference Mongolia 1919, managed care and Communism in the same bullet point. While I’ve always been very proud of that one (err.. maybe you have to be there, but you could always hire me to come tell it!), even if I am jesting, there’s a really loose use of the concept of Marxism in this 2005 piece (reprinted in 2009) called A Prescription for Marxism in Foreign Policy from (apparently) libertarian-leaning Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff. He o...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Matthew Holt OP-ED 15th Birthday Celebration Commumism Frappuchinos Source Type: blogs