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Recent
Stories
May
29, 2003
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
May
28, 2003
David
Vest
DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More
Dave
Lindorff
My Grandfather's Medal
John
Stanton
America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key
Bernard
Weiner
A PNAC Primer
Robert
Jensen
Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party
Ahmad Faruqui
The Oil Business of Regime Change:
the CIA and Iran
Hammond
Guthrie
Disarming Conundrums
Steve Perry
What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?
May
27, 2003
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
Myths
Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
May
26, 2003
Franklin
C. Spinney
Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated
Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Sacrifice
Sam
Hamod
When Trained Killers Return Home
Stew Albert
The Final Conflict
May
24 / 25, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
Hot Stories
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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for More Stories.
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May
29, 2003
The Economics of Health
Care in America
Pay More to
Die Earlier
By YVES ENGLER
There were demonstrations of 600,000 people in
Paris and 90,000 in Germany this past Sunday. Strikes have paralyzed
both France and Austria recently. In Peru on Tuesday President
Alejandro Toledo declared a 30-day state of emergency and sent
troops into the streets to end strikes by teachers and many others.
What is happening? On the surface, the
issues are pretty straightforward. In France the main issues
are change to retirement benefits. Currently, public workers
are able to retire after a 37.5-year contribution period, which
the government wants to increase to 40 years. Germans unions
are mad at Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's plan
to cap unemployment benefits at 12 months for those under 55
and 18 months for those over 55. The proposal is also to make
it easier for small firms to hire and fire new workers. The issues
are similar in Austria. In Peru, teachers are demanding a wage
increase of $60 to $260 (US) per month, which they claim is barely
a living wage. Farmers want lower taxes on equipment.
Underlying the strikes and demonstrations,
however, is a more fundamental question. What is the point of
an economy?
While the answer may seem obvious enough--to
provide people with decent lives--capitalism often confuses the
matter by claiming its interests and the role of the economy
are the same.
Take the U.S. medical system as an example.
The U.S. spends by far the most money on health care of any country
in the world, about 14% of gross domestic product. The next closest
country spends just over 10 percent. Not only do Americans allocate
a larger percentage of GDP to health care, they spend more in
absolute dollars. Americans pay $4,637 on average for health
coverage while Canadians, the fourth biggest spenders, shell
out $2,200 (US) .
This is good for segments of the economy.
Pharmaceutical companies are making big bucks, U.S. doctors are
some of the highest paid, fancy new technologies are being sold
that purportedly do miraculous things, the hospitals are getting
their cut and the insurance companies keep raising their costs,
so surely all is swell.
Not really. According to the N.Y Times
there are "60 million uninsured during a year (May 13)"
Don't despair, however, since according
to the Financial Times at least "the system is world-class
(May 24)" for those with employer paid insurance. But is
it?
American life expectancy is only the
17th highest in the world. More importantly a World Health Organization
study that counted years of good health showed that the U.S.
ranked even lower by that measure. "The United States rated
24th under the system, or an average of 70.0 years of healthy
life for babies born in 1999." Christopher Murray, a director
from WHO summarized the findings; "Basically, you die earlier
and spend more time disabled if you're an American rather than
a member of most other advanced countries."
This doesn't sound "world class"
and it isn't. Unless we define "world class" as the
degree to which the system is controlled by private interests.
No other industrialized country has a medical system with a greater
for-profit orientation. And capital is happy, so why let early
death dampen the mood.
To be fair to the U.S. medical establishment,
lower American life expectancy is not solely the result of its
absurd profit orientation. Nor is the medical sector the only
one where the economy has lost its way in serving ordinary people.
For instance, one of the reasons for
the shorter American life expectancy is the degree to which Americans
work. Even though new time saving devices have been invented
and production capabilities are expanding, Americans are still
working longer. As a result of the weakening of the organized
U.S. working class, Americans are now working 200 hours more
than they did in the early 1970s (NY Times April 12). This is
taking place while in Europe people are working less. The average
Norwegian now works 29 percent less than the average American--a
total of 14 weeks per year less. In the past two decades the
percentage of Americans over 65 who are still working has increased
by close to 50% (La Presse) Because of a 1983 Congressional decision,
by 2027 the American retirement age will officially increase
to 67. This is not just happening in the U.S. The extremely pro-business
Tory government in Ontario, Canada's largest province, decided
to increase the province's workweek so workers could work 60
hours in a given week and not receive a dime in overtime pay.
According to the N.Y. Times, "the
harmful effects of working more hours are being felt in many
areas of society. Stress is a leading cause of heart disease
and weakened immune system." (April 12) It's unhealthy to
work so much but also why would we bother? Technological advances
should lead to more leisure, not less. But somehow the mainstream
press seems to miss that point.
The overwhelming dominance of "capitalist
logic" is such that all too often the ills of our world
are explained through the lens of what is good for a tiny minority
of our population. For instance, according to a recent National
Post article "productivity losses due to depression, anxiety,
substance abuse and burnout run at about $33-billion a year in
Canada (May 14)" Or how about those World Bank officials
who complain about the devastating impact AIDS is having on African
economies.
Productivity losses? Impact on economies?
Isn't depression damaging people's lives and aren't African children
growing up without parents?
But capitalism has its own logic and
according to it everything that can be, should be explained in
economic terms. And if it can't be explained in economic terms
than surely it isn't really important. What regular people care
about is all too often irrelevant.
Nevertheless, people do care.
That is why a few days ago 7,000 East
German steel workers voted to strike for a 35-hour workweek.
Currently they work 38 hours, which gives them three hours less
leisure than their West German counterparts and unemployment
is high in their region so they hope a reduced workweek will
help create jobs. In France, hundreds of thousand of people care
enough to hit the streets to say 37.5 years of work is enough.
In Peru, millions care enough to demand a living wage.
These people are acting in the self-interest
of their communities, which is not the same as the self-interest
of capital.
They are acting sensibly, and should
be supported if one considers the economy as an instrument for
the community of all people.
Yves Engler
is vice president communications for the Concordia Student Union
Montreal. He can be reached at: yvesengler@hotmail.com
Today's
Features
May
28, 2003
David
Vest
DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More
Dave
Lindorff
My Grandfather's Medal
John
Stanton
America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key
Bernard
Weiner
A PNAC Primer
Robert
Jensen
Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party
Ahmad Faruqui
The Oil Business of Regime Change:
the CIA and Iran
Hammond
Guthrie
Disarming Conundrums
Steve Perry
What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?
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