Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Listen to Me

I'm scheduled to be interviewed on Mike McConnell's radio show this morning (Wednesday) at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. I'll be talking about the World Health Organization's ranking of national healthcare systems. The show is on Cincinnati's WLW (AM 700); you can listen to it live here; and it's also on XM satellite radio.

Also, I recently discovered that my 2006 testimony before a subcommittee of the Minnesota State House of Representatives, on the subject of alcohol regulation, is available here. So if you just can't get enough of my voice, you can listen to that as well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Of course socialized medicine is ideally for the poor; the rich can afford better or the best treatments. The question to my mind is how is the capitalist greed system doing in providing for the health of poor kids. If it stinks then it has to be made to work. Unless, you don't give a hoot whether poor kids have a chance should they get very sick.

There is still a tremendous bias in this debate that exclusively considers Western Medical practices. This thus favors the AMA to the exclusion of alternative health practices. Why do you favor such a monopoly by medical doctors and the many myths that surround them? That doesn't sound very Adam Smith or Milton Friedman to me. So, if there is problem with circular reasoning by WHO, I would ask what limited assumptions are you making with regard to medical & pharmaceutical methods. "Modern" medicine was called that 500 years ago when doctor or barbers bore holes in peoples heads to let out evil spirits. Surgery with anesthesia is only a 20th century phenomenon as well as are antibiotics.

If the Canadian or French system is a bad idea for the common folk, then why is that the case and why hasn't it been tried and discarded by those countries? Screaming the word "socialism" as a scare tactic doesn't cut it in my book. It's expected by right-wing talk show hosts, but not by owlish academics like you.