A Photo Essay. Alyosha Needs an Operation…

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These photos were taken in an ordinary Russian hospital in Novosibirsk (Novosibirsk Oblast, Siberian Federal District). Russia has had government intervention in healthcare since Tsarist times. In fact, the local governing bodies (the “zemstvos”) brought doctors into the countryside. As a contemporary Russian doctor said, “The zemsky doctors did it all! They didn’t charge fees, but they never went without!”

Compare this to the Kafkaesque ideology of the Republican Party… they refuse to cover everyone and their real concern is for the profits of HMOs, insurance companies, and shyster lawyers. If you hear someone claiming to be Orthodox and defending the GOP’s apologia for the HMO death panels… shout them down! Our true leaders hold up social democracy and universal access to health care as NECESSITIES for an ordered society.

This year, the Russian state is increasing its commitment to improving hospitals and health care… in the USA, the Republican Party is increasing its commitment to improving the bottom lines of the oligarchs and slashing the incomes of everyone else. The richest 1 percent held 9 percent of the wealth in 1980… today, the richest 1 percent hold 24 percent of the wealth.

It’s time to emulate the Russians and take the oligarchs down a peg or two! As Oleg Gazmanov put it in a concert, “Oligarkhie nishchie!” (“Oligarchy is empty!”) They’ll behave once we give a few of them the same medicine that VVP gave Khodorkovsky and Berezovsky.

BMD

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