I was amused and at the same time saddened to read all the ignorant criticisms in Friday’s Las Vegas Sun about Sue Lowden’s comments on the coming socialist health care.
You see, I experienced personally the health care systems both in a communist country (former Yugoslavia) and in socialist countries (France, Mexico, Spain, Great Britain, Brazil). All such systems become in time two-tier systems: one is for ordinary people and one is for the regime elite. Both rely on corruption and under-the-table payments, either cash or services in kind.
Bartering is widespread as are hidden illegalities. For example, one has a choice with a toothache: either “normal” care, which is tooth extraction, or special care by means of an envelope passed to the receptionist in which case the dentist will provide you with a filling or a crown.
In France and Great Britain, it is also a two-tier system — one for ordinary people and another for “cadres.” I know all this because 1) my brother, sister, and brother-in-law are doctors, and 2) I lived and worked in former Yugoslavia, France, Mexico, Spain, Brazil and the USA.
My father, dying from incurable cancer in great pain (in former communist Yugoslavia), secured morphine from a doctor by passing him the one gold coin the family kept in reserve for just such an emergency.
My late brother, known for his incorruptibility, refused those payments in kind; then, coming back home from work, would find that a patient of his had left two dozen eggs with our mother at home. In short, Sue Lowden is at least partially right, and the criticisms of her comments are unjust, unfunny and so ignorant.
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