Capitalism, Privacy and Medical Records

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/06/ron-paul/medical-ids-enemy-of-privacy-liberty-and-health/

I agree with Ron Paul that a universal medical ID is a bad idea and potentially spells trouble. And yet the question of medical records has been an ongoing problem and all acknowledge the current system slows down the health care process and increases costs.

In some ways it would be better if we all personally took possession of our medical records, brought them with us and took them home. However, apart from being unrealistic given that people will lose and forget them, some folks would have to wheel in their record on a dolly or hand cart every time they went to the doctor. Additionally the various offices and institutions wouldn't want some of their internal information and procedures out there floating around.

So what to do? For a long time people have been pushing toward digital records and given how our society has sold its soul to the computer this is hardly surprising.

And yet unless there's an efficient way to access these records from various offices, such as a central data base, we're back to more bureaucracy, more paperwork and more delays.

So again, what to do? A universal data base actually makes a lot of sense and yet for those suspicious of the government, that gives reason to pause.  

And rightly so. The government bureaucracies cannot be trusted and yet at this point between the banks and the government all of our information is out there anyway. Post 9/11 they're collecting our phone calls, emails and bundles of data about our internet activity, facial recognition and our daily movements and travel. They're building dossiers on all of us, profiles created by connecting dots. They can figure out who are relations are, who are friends are... and they're trying to predict behaviour. We are rapidly slipping into the dystopian scenarios that we have been warned about for decades.

Sadly the debate is over. The politicians aren't seriously questioning it anymore. Neither are the up and coming generations. The current questions are really over how the private and public data collection sectors are to interact. There's some wrestling over control as the data hydra has grown so vast and unwieldy and then of course the state's private sector collaborators are also seeking profits. The state will sometimes protest their wanton collection and use of public data but this is farcical. The state has no problem with the data collection. Congress is simply trying to regulate it and have a say. The social media companies, (not that they are even remotely objects of pity or empathy) are caught in the middle, being pulled in multiple directions. On the one hand they're collaborators, working with the state and intelligence apparatus. While answering to these forces, they also must reckon with Wall Street and Congress as well as questions of international law. It's a dance that makes for some public drama but the real debate over public data collection... that's over. This is but one of the monumental changes that took place after 9/11, changes that the public has largely ignored and yet have profoundly re-shaped society and even how people think.

Ron Paul has a good track record of opposing these trajectories and he's to be commended but this article demonstrates a real blind spot in his thinking. Private corporations are certainly not any more trustworthy than the government. In fact less so. They're specifically in it for the money and your data is a commodity to them. They don't want to protect it. Quite the opposite, they want to sell it and it would be in their interest to charge a fee in order for you to prevent them from doing so. Data is no longer just information. In today's world it's a commodity.

Additionally the financial, insurance and medical sectors are every day and in every way being wed to the state infrastructure. In fact the forces within the state that want to find ways to work around the law are more likely to do so by utilising a private company that's on the government payroll. The capitalist monopolies that reign over society have become strategic interests on the part of the state. They cannot be allowed to be subject to the dangers of the market. Their collapse would harm American security and so the state 'must' regulate them and integrate them. This is capitalism in its ultimate stage... a thieving oligarchic plutocracy.... or as some have called it, the Corporatocracy. The record shows the ruling class has no regard for the middle or working classes and certainly not the poor. Their only fear is social unrest. In the meantime they have already demonstrated they will use every tool in their arsenal to control the public. The liberalism of American society is quickly becoming a farce.

As far as Ron Paul's concerns with regard to 2^nd Amendment 'rights' and/or political activity, it's too late. This data collection is already happening and I don't see that private companies are going to change that. There are existing auditing procedures and it would take little effort to pass another phase of 'mandatory reporting' legislation. Everything is in place. The battles over gun rights and restrictions are theatre at this point. The state is collecting the data. The real debate is over how to use it and at what point will the state start doing so openly.

The Capitalist system is wed to the state and necessarily so. Eventually it reaches a point in which the two forces become almost indiscernible and we're pretty much there. Ron Paul is in error to think that the free market system functions as a safeguard. The capitalism Paul is talking about is the localised economy that used to exist in small towns on the frontier. The model was never universal and thus is not applicable to either a nation this size, a society this diverse, an economy of this nature nor an empire that relies upon a now strategic financial infrastructure which most certainly encompasses the world of finance, insurance, pharmaceuticals and thus by default the regulation and practice of medicine.

I too am leery of the direction our society is headed. It is a source of deep angst as I watch how quickly we are setting the stage for a dystopian nightmare. That said, Paul's Libertarian gloss on the issue is empty if not a bit silly. Health Savings Accounts and tax credits appeal to his base but are meaningless gestures in light of our social and economic realities. Paul has never understood the plight of the working class and how comical talk of Health Savings Accounts and tax credits are to them. Additionally how many of his followers understand that tax credits are a dead issue to those who would promote a flat tax.

The American medical system is evil and the source of that evil is the profit system... the fact that it was generally constructed on capitalist principles.

There are real and very serious problems that should be addressed and while I share Paul's concerns he has not understood the issues, the problems and his solutions are divorced from reality.

There's no fixing this. The system, the model has to be smashed and broken. And as Christians that's not our job. I won't weep when it happens but at the same time I'm not so foolish as to think that the breaking won't unleash a lot of evil and create as many problems as it solves.