Q: Is Maine’s Medicaid System Communist,
Socialist, or Fascist?
A: All of the Above
By: David Deschesne
Editor/Publisher,
Fort Fairfield Journal, December 19, 2018
I received a polite and thoughtful Email on my recent Medicaid story published in FFJ, December 5, 2018, p. 1. The general gist of it was a commentary on how Maine’s Medicaid system is neither Communist or Socialist. What followed was a soft-sell of the redistribution of wealth scheme where government places itself in the position of Lord and Master over the people’s lives, redistributing coercively collected “charity” payments in the form of taxes and a lamentation on the glories of government-run health care systems in general and other countries’ systems, specifically (though the more benign “single payer system” description was used instead of “government-run” but the two are one in the same.)
Before I go much further, I want to review the three basic forms of political-Economic systems mentioned above for those who need it.
Communism: A system of government where the ownership of private property is abolished and all money and personal and business property are owned by the government. While it’s promoted as “ownership by the people,” it’s really run and administered by a complex, convoluted system of government bureaucracies which make all the decisions from what to produce, and how much, at the industrial and food production end, all the way down to what job a person is going to have, how much training they’ll receive and where they are going to live. In this sense, the people are sold on the idea that they are all “part owners” in the businesses and corporations that government manages and runs for them, but in reality they are all economic slaves to that government system and their lives are micro-managed all the way down to the most base level by some government bureaucrat deciding what apartment they’ll live in to what food they’ll eat and when. Since it doesn’t take long for the people to figure out they are government slaves, all communist governments tend toward a hyper-authoritarian police state style apparatus to enforce the government’s will and edicts against an increasing disgruntled and completely disarmed populace.
Socialism: Socialism is “communism—lite”. While there is private ownership of property, and businesses are generally free to make all of their production decisions with a certain amount of government “regulation,” they are all heavily taxed in order to finance a costly, inefficient and burdensome social welfare system that is designed to keep one class of people continuously and perpetually stuck in one financial condition—poverty—and with the enticement of free “benefits” trickled down to them in the form of monthly stipends, food stamps and rent payments, keep them in a constant state of dependency on government for their daily bread. Socialism only works until the government runs out of other people’s money, then all private and business property is taken by force as the system morphs into full blown Communism.
Fascism: While the word Fascist has been misused in the media and by the left-wing liberal group, ANTIFA (Anti-Fascism) to derogatorily label anyone who doesn’t go along with the Socialist program, it seems that most people don’t really understand what the word really means. Fascism is simply a system of government where government and business has merged. While each remain a separate entity, each contributes to the other’s continued existence. A really good example is government-mandated automobile insurance. The government requires everyone who drives a car or truck to have insurance. This is a boon for car insurance company profits since they now have a captive market who, under the force of government, have no option to opt-out. Insurance companies, in turn donate large amounts of money back to government both in the form of taxes and under the table bribes, political donations and payoffs in order to keep that very lucrative law in place. The Democrats recently attempted to expand this Fascist model with the so-called “Affordable Care Act” (a/k/a Obamacare) by mandating everyone in the U.S. buy health insurance and provide taxpayer support to those who couldn’t afford the ridiculously high insurance premiums. Health insurance company profits soared.
This is the essence of Fascism: government and business working together for each other’s financial benefit with all costs passed on to the citizenry.
You really won’t learn any of this in public school because all public schools are funded and heavily regulated by the same government that seeks to perpetuate its power using these systems of oppression.
A Reader’s Response to the Medicaid Story
Now, for the Email I received. It is reprinted in full as follows:
Dear Dave,
I had the opportunity to glance at your article on expanding medicaid in Maine. You keep associating this with communism and socialism, which is an error. In communism the government owns everything. What we have is a single payer system which means the government uses some of its tax money to provide health care benefits and private doctors get some of this money. In this system people can also have private insurance. Again, this is not communism.
The United States is the only developed country that does not provide Universal health care for its people. One reason is that the AMA is against it and works very hard to try and implant the idea in the American public that Universal Health care is communism. Why do you think that is?
The chances of dying before the age of fifty-five in the US is higher than any other developed country because people cannot afford to go to the doctor for preventative care. When I became seriously ill, I was in the same position and I could have died. I have a friend whose son is disabled. She works, but without the medicaid, her family would not be able to survive.
We can figure out a way to pay to expand medicaid if we try. If we have to raise taxes to do so, especially on cigarettes, alcohol and other foods that contribute to health issues we should do so. In Canada they pay a 15 percent sales tax and I've never heard anyone complain about it. They all seem very happy they can go to a doctor when they need to. Several times I've been asked by Canadians, why doesn't the United States just copy us on health care? That's a good question. I would start by questioning big pharma, the AMA and the insurance companies.
Yours Truly,
H.S.
This Editor’s Rebuttal
Now, here’s my rebuttal and response for the consideration and further elucidation of Fort Fairfield Journal readers:
Dear H.S.
Thanks for the respectful commentary. I understand the attributes of Communism and its little brother, Socialism but if you will read the article more closely, not just glancing at it, you will find I did not say Medicaid, or MaineCare was a communist program. The only reference I made to communists or Communism was in relation to the adoption of the Initiative and Referendum process in the early 20th century. Go back and read the article more slowly and you’ll see what I’m saying here is the truth.
I still contend that the government assuming the taxpayers' money is theirs (government's) to take and use to pay everybody else's health care costs - or use the mechanism of taxes, penalties and fees to coerce people to purchase health insurance - is at its foundation at least a Socialist system for the former and a Fascist (merger/cooperation of private business with government) for the latter. Unfettered, it will ultimately expand to a communist system, which is only a mirage of ownership by “the people” since an authoritarian government is still in control of the confiscation and redistribution of wealth.
Under the Fascist model of coerced health insurance purchases, government is still in charge by using its power to coerce people to buy from private businesses (insurance companies) against their will, or ability and when they can't afford to buy the product, the government takes taxpayer money to pay the premiums, anyway.
What we have for a system of government here in the U.S. now is a quasi-communist/socialist/fascist amalgamation of sorts and everybody's getting rich off of it except for the proletariat (the poverty-level employees) who must have a portion of the proceeds of their labor stolen from them to pay for it.
When people are forced to contribute to everyone else's health care via forced, confiscatory taxation, or forced mandates of health insurance purchases, via a strong, authoritarian central government acting on their behalf to regulate, control and finance the health care system then the people become de facto “owners” of the health care industry - if not in fact, then at least on its face - with their elected representatives in charge of running the system through regulations, mandates and the purse strings. Hence, this loosely fits the definition of Communism; or perhaps a form of Neo-Communism. But, certainly it's at least Socialism by any accepted definition of the term if government's paying the bills with other people's money; and Fascism if government's forcing people to purchase a product or service that they would otherwise be free not to if they didn't want to, or could not afford.
Communism is essentially Socialism at the barrel of a gun, with gulags for anyone who disagrees with government. But, since I never said the Medicaid system was Communist, as you allege, this entire response is merely academic.
Now, for the Single Payer system. Under a Single Payer system, only those the government deems worthy of treatment will receive it in a timely fashion. Those who are too old or frail to contribute to the productiveness of society will be relegated to back of the very long waiting lines, or be given extra doses of morphine to speed them along to an untimely death. Government actually has no interest in the health of its people outside of their ability to function as a tax paying profit center - or as a voting block to continue their perpetuation of power and the status quo for the profit of all those big players running the game.
As for the Canadian system, they already have long lines to wait for treatment by less than competent doctors (or, more often than not, a physician's assistant) because so many people are lined up for their free ration of “health care” and all of the really good doctors have moved to another country where they can be paid what they're worth.
As for the prohibitive cost of health care in the U.S. at this point, it is due in part to lawyers filing excessive and frivolous malpractice suits in order to make windfall lottery winning-style payouts for their clients and, equally as destructive, government regulations that force health care institutions to implement costly, burdensome and excessive requirements and mandates—such as what happens under top-down, command and control Communist government systems. While well-meaning, and mostly unnecessary, those costs are all ultimately passed on to the consumer. I’ve had doctors who were in practice in the 1960s-1980s explain to me that health care only got prohibitively expensive after government, and lawyers, got involved in the business. Before then, most people could afford to pay their own bills.
Leave it to government to take something simple and make it complicated...and expensive.
Big Pharma is also definitely a problem. They have been allowed by government to reap excessively high profits on their products in the U.S. while the exact same product manufactured by them sells for pennies on the dollar overseas. Senator Collins has been working on correcting this disparity in prices but it’s an uphill battle going against those financial titans.
If, as you suggest, taxation is increased on alcohol, cigarettes, etc. to fund the Medicaid expansion, that may sound good on its face, but then government has an interest in keeping a certain segment of society addicted to those vices in order to derive funds from that profit center. In that respect, it becomes an exercise in hypocrisy: “...don't drink or smoke, because it's bad for you - please drink or smoke because we need the money to pay for health care.” While that's not spoken out loud by politicians, it is the underlying thought process—for those few politicians who do actually think.
Not mentioning the universe of gross inefficiencies inherent in all government bureaucracy, these are just some of the problems with putting government in charge of every body's health care.
