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Show Wednesday. January 10. 1990 "Die Daily I'tah Chronicle - Page Seven Letters Hunt's doctor-bashin- g column bitter, sleazy, stinky Lori Editor Lori Hunt's editorial money? He cured or prevented blindness in over 1,000 people. Another buddy made more than 1.5 million last year he's not a doctor, he didn't finish college. He did have a recent hit video on MTV. As a young physician, ! have amassed an educational debt that "U.S. medical system keeps the wealthy heathy" (Jan. 8) was yet another sleazy, uninformed journalistic ignorama from a writer whose word processor works faster than her thought processor. With statements Tike "and don't think doctors will hesitate to tell' a most professional people would envy, as an annual fac":3ndn salary. :: - y, r upper-lev- el patient to 'get lost' to their; "no system can offer free competent,, ,1 ,will probably never achieve the s health care to people when it is so net total lifetime earnings iof riddled with doctors and hospital that chose lawengineering of. administrators who are obsessed with commerce and industry for their ! my-peer- . making money," Hunt attributes America's health care woes to a careers. After college, medical school, an internship and yet more training after that, I still don't make medical profession rife with e dollarmongers. She asserts that "if they have no other choice but to work within a nationalized system, human cold-as-ic- enough money to afford health insurance either, Ms. Hunt, and my financial status is more typical of American physicians than is that of my opthalmologist colleague. life may prevail over the almighty buck" It is true that there are people in our consumer-drive- n capitalist I think that the theme of Ms. Hunt's editorial, as much as doctor-bashin- g, society that make absurd amounts of an money. One physician-friend- ,, opthalmologist, pulled in just over a n last year, his income is " higher than 99 of 100 American doctors. What did he do to make half-millio- such an outrageous amount of Guest Column- - no, low or moderate income and finally, that the current sytsem must be changed. I agree with her perspective in all these counts, as would most of my physician colleagues. This is an issue of. many complexities was that any person should have ready access to medical care regardless of income, insurance status or ability to pay. She also feels that the current health-car- e system in the United States is unacceptable because it denies care to people with to ' develop themselves as human beings: Every day, many graduate students in my department face this problem. If they write the thesis they are interested in, in the way they think is true, what will happen to them on the job market? We have all read about the increase in suicides and spouse abuse with increased constraints By Al Campbell As an exercise in logic, the game is not very clever. First you define the possibilities. Either your "system is' free market, or it is Stalinist. Never mind that the first is an economic category and the essence of the second is a political structure. When you run the New York unemployment. People's ideals, their and their choice of what direction to develop self-estee- Times or Washington Post, you need not be too careful about logic. Then you prove your objectivity by quoting Castro that they never intend to self-conce- pt, themselves during their life are all greatly influenced by money and the market. The introduce free markets in point of socialism, of Marxism, was to liberate humanity from this constraint. That's where Stalinism came Cuba. . . Hence, the only conclusion possible Stalinism lives on in Cuba even as it crumbles ' throughout the East Bloc. One group not listened to much on what is going on in Cuba, other than the misused in. The elimination of the dominance of markets was effected. That was a necessary, but by no means sufficent condition for people taking over conscious control of their conditions of existence. Instead of society itself (the associated producers) taking over political control, a thin layer of bureaucrats, centered in the misnamed "communist parties," took over. That is the essence of Stalinism, be it open terror or a more benign form as in Poland in the '60s and '70s. It pushes the masses of people out of political activity, far from empowering them. And though it rests on a quotes referred to above, is the Cubans. Not surprisingly, they have some thoughts and insights into what is going on there, and not surprisingly, it's something very different from what the press here is writing about. For four years they have been engaged in a process they call "rectification." In the mid-'70- s, they shifted their economic planning approach to that of the Soviet Union, that is, to a Stalinist model. It's that which rectification is directed against, even while vowing not to turn to free planned economy, it has absolutely nothing to do with socialism. In a Cuban book from 1987, translated into English this past summer as Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism, Carlos Tablada takes up what is involved in the rectification process, in the frame of an advocate of this approach back markets. It's hard to square that with seeing them as Stalinists. is Stalinism more than much It's anyway. the terror that. reigned under Joe Stalin in the USSR. To define or understand it, one must start with the goal of socialism. People were to be free from market and money So not to be loud and obnoxious and . reimbursement there no is physician hope it doesn't smell too bad. Hunt's "free" medical care acrimonyfest against physicians Editorializing, whether in a really stinks. newspaper or over a couple of beers with some friends, is like farting in Steven R. Maertens, M.D. do if must Research Fellow it, public you you try Column schedule for year the - Cuba's rectification on right track .. regardless of the system for what - in the 1960s, Che. The point of rectification is First, that efficiency itself is not the central issue. A machine-top- l factory may raise the rate of growth more than a e center and so by the two-fol- d. day-car- universal GNP measure be . benefit of that small handful For of people on campus who may care in Aggeler's razor wit; Fridays will the slightest bit, the following is a. schedule of Chronicle columnists and , the days they will appear, more or less, for the rest of the academic yean Monday will feature the multi- talented Lori Hunt; the lovely Ken Southwick will be appearing on Tuesdays; Wednesday's editorial page will be graced by the insightful Andrew Hunt; Thursdays mean Chris spotlight guest columnists from around the globe. As always, the editorial staff enthusiastically welcomes guest . columns from any mildly responsible individual from the U. Such columns should be either typed and double-space- d or turned in on a Mac disk. Guest columns can appear any day of the week and are subject to the editing of staff members. a more rational investment. e But centers are essential if relations between day-car- men and women are to change toward equality. Rectification in the tradition of true socialism reestablishes human needs as the central question, not "efficiency" or "people before profits," as the U.S. new leftists of the '60s used to say. But rectification goes even deeper than that. It is not just making people better off, but enabling them to effect'their condition themselves. Even, if super-brilliacentral planners could set all the prices and decide on all the quantities to be produced, that would be dehumanizing. nt The population becomes simply consumers, like so many cattle to be fed. The essence of humanity, its creative capacity, is destroyed. Through meaningful work, people do more than create the goods and services they consume they define and create themselves. You want a day-car- e center? Fine you get your neighbors together, the state will provide the cement and bricks, and you build it. Then it will be yours in a way legal ownership can never capture you'll feel some pride every time you walk past it, and you will become a different person for having sat down with your neighbors to discuss out what really is to life in all of you.. important This is what is going on in Cuba today. Al Campbell is a graduate student in economics. The Daily Utah Chronicle The Daily Utah Chronicle is an independent student newspaper published during the. fall, winter and spring quarters, excluding test week by the University Publications Council. Editorials reflect the opinion of the editorial board, and not necessarily the opinions of the student body or the administration. Subscriptions must be prepaid. Forward all subscription correspondence, including change of address, to the Business Manager,. The Daily Utah Chronicle, 240 Union, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84112 For questions, comments or complaints call Editorial Board: Christian Aggeler, Michael Allsop, Andrew Hunt, Lori Hunt, Ken Southwick , Editor in Chief Lori Hunt Associate Editor Andrew Hunt News Editor Michael Allsop Editorial Editor Ken Southwick Editor Sharon Dtx:kert Spectrum Sports Editor Dirk Facer Photography Editor Andrew Holloway Night Editor John fticorelli Copy Editors - Terry Birch Corinna Freimann Assistant News Editor Scott Stone Assistant Editorial Editor Christian Aggeler Assistant Spectrum Editor Stephen Moore Assistant Sports Editor Loren Jorgensen Assistant Photography Editor Kristan Jacobsen Administration Reporter Jennifer Gully ASUU Reporter-New- s Lizz Hart Reporters Margaret Wimborne 581-704- 1. 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