Re: The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Please.  I said I could not comment on the economics of health care, 
but that I do not find the notion that people will invest their own 
money to provide education to be particularly terrifying.  The child 
who died had recurring leukemia and catastrophic damage to her liver 
from chemotherapy administered against the leukemia.  Her death is sad. 
 But the lessons may not be at all as you have drawn them.  For one 
thing, her prognosis even with the transplant was I suspect uncertain.

In any event, while the child's death clearly raises issues of how we 
finance health care, using her death to advance your agenda against 
"for-profit" education is inflammatory and contemptible.  Whether in 
education or in health care, the world does not divide neatly into a 
"for profit" part that is entirely bad and a "not for profit" part that 
is entirely good.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Hays <shays@ccwebster.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 12:57 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans

On Dec 26, 2007, at 11:04 AM, aburke5054@aol.com wrote:


> Comparing liver transplants with elementary and secondary education 
is

> quite a stretch.


You made the initial comparison to managed health care (its "economics 
and returns") in response to comments comparing privatized education to 
privatized health care.  I was merely showing a recent example 
(extreme, to be sure) of the fact that managed, for-profit health care 
does not have the care of its subscribers as its number one priority.  
I suspect most reasonable people saw the connection between for-profit 
health care and for-profit educational "care".


> Beyond that, using a child's tragic death from liver

> disease to advance a political agenda for education, and in the > 
context

> of Christmas, no less, strikes me as misguided to the point of

> irresponsibility.


Again ... the point has to do with the providers of the service (in 
this case, health insurance providers) and outcomes to patients who put 
their trust in it.  Again ... the purpose was to provide an analogy to 
the type of service one can expect from a for-profit educational 
"service".


> Finally, those who believe that the the child's

> death reveals inequity in how American society makes health care

> available should advocate for constructive changes.


I do.  And in this case, I am advocating that we do not go down the 
same path to managed for-profit schools.  This is not, as you are 
always quick to point out, necessarily a vehicle for advocating or 
promoting change in other institutions.  Hence, no advocacy for 
single-payer, not-for-profit health care in this list.


"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box 
when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it"

                 --Terry Pratchett


Scott Hays

shays@ccwebster.netwebster.net










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