Medical Marxism: wave of the future?(Insider Report)

"Karl Marx may have suffered a second death at the end of the last century, but look for a spirited comeback in this one," predicts Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff in the January/February issue of Foreign Policy. "The next great battle between socialism and capitalism will be waged over human health."

At present, U.S. health care costs have reached 15 percent of annual national income and could exceed 30 percent by mid-century. When that figure reaches 25 percent, Rogoff writes, "Americans would see their tax bills more than double.... With oppressive tax burdens and heavy state intervention in health--already the largest sector of the economy--socialism would have crept in through the back door."

As grim as things may be in the U.S., where health care is largely cartelized through quasi-socialist HMOs, things are much worse abroad. "In Canada," Rogoff points out, "the horrific delays for elective surgery remind one of waiting for a car in the old Soviet bloc. And despite British Chancellor Gordon Brown's determined efforts to rebuild the country's scandalously dilapidated public hospital system, anyone who can afford to go elsewhere usually does. With public health care systems fraying at the edges, many countries outside the ...