Doctors are shifting left. Politico explained this last year with the blunt blue good / red bad stupidity that characterizes most media product: “The GOP Turned Its Back on Science. So Science Turned Its Backs on the GOP.” The subhed got to the actual point: “A political realignment around health care is reshaping state politics.”
This issue is a problem. Chris is correct about the dichotomization that occurred with the structural economic and regulatory changes that have taken place in healthcare since the introduction of Medicare. There are a goodly number of books about healthcare economics from dissenting voices including Scott Atlas, MD and others, but the gist of the issue is that since the 1960's and the injection of government payment into the healthcare equation, there has been progressive consolidation in allopathic ( meaning not alternative) healthcare in terms of corporate takeovers and buyouts and the inevitable enmeshment of the government agencies with the big corporations - hospital systems, health care insurers, big pharma. This has been no accident. Those of us who can recall the 1990's, besides parachute pants, remember Hillary's ill fated attempt at Hillary Care, which was basically what Obama got done with a questionable assist from the SCOTUS to enact Obamacare. The goal at one level is consolidate and incentivize the industry into a manageable ( for the government ) number of large players through regulatory and financial mechanisms. While they tell you they want to save you money, they don't really care about costs. They keep going up rapidly. And after all it's not their money. It's your money. So the cost savings argument made by the socialized medicine crowd is a misdirection play. At that point, you can do many things to the industry. You can mandate behavioral changes through carrots and mostly sticks. If a doctor rolls his eyes or sighs because a nurse or somebody at the corporate healthcare facilty screws up, and that doctor is a little too independent, they can force him/her into disciplinary proceedings. There is a draconian process with very little if any due process. If they want to make your life miserable, they can do it. The process is the punishment. So the doctors are disincentivized from sticking up for themselves or their patients when it conflicts with the corporation's objectives. They have them by the short hairs. We have also seen the state medical boards and specialty certification boards bully doctors during COVID for standing up for truth in science and questioning the dominant narrative. Thus we end up with a semi-seamless integration between the government and big healthcare. The formula is pretty simple. They buy off the big guys and they punish the small guys. In this way healthcare was a canary in the coalmine for other sectors of the economy.
So the corporate and academic physicians who are employed by large systems and incentivized financially and in other ways by the systems adopt the ideology promulgated by the system. If they don't, they keep their mouth shut. Failing that, they get the message to quit or get fired for being a pimple on the ass of the hospital system. This is identical to the big corporate law firms, and academia in general.
So in private practice where I live, many docs are conservatives. But we are a minority. It's uncomfortable for a lot of reasons, because even if we are not employees, we are subject to hospital bylaws and threats from government and insurance companies. There are plenty of levers that these entities can pull if they want to which will drop you in the shit. This is a significant reason for me to practice with as little exposure to the system as possible.
Just like many lay people I talk to, I no longer trust many of my colleagues to do the right thing under duress. I no longer trust the results of a lot of research that has come out or the pharmaceutical industry, or the orthodox medical structure ( although I've thought them to be a bunch of ponces for as long as I can remember). Medical schools are indoctrinating DEI crap into the students. And the schools absolutely do not want original thinkers. They want to produce a uniform product. It's a scary situation. The political evolution and capture of US healthcare is shameful because it has resulted in dead and injured patients, and a total DISREGARD for real science and independent inquiry. On the patient side, suffice it to say that you need to be your own advocate. The other massive problem is that the cost structure, again like everything the Feds do, is totally unsustainable. It's ridiculously expensive to get sick or buy medications. The system will collapse at some point. I don't know when, but it's not possible to continue like this. We either end up like Canada or the UK, which suck btw, and go broke more slowly while denying care, or go bankrupt. Cash pay, which seems anachronistic, may turn out to be the most efficient and honest way to buy healthcare. Everything is transparent and if a genuine marketplace emerges, costs would come down. Don't hold your breath.
I'm a librarian, go ahead and ask me about ideological capture in my profession. But before you do, I and my few like-minded colleagues have to attend to our cellar samizdat printing press and HAM radio in our isolated cabin in Northern Ontario in order to question placing Blow-Job How To Books in the kids' section of the library. Be right back...
Commissar archipelago. Mengele would be proud of modern American doctors. I wouldn’t trust my life with anyone who went to med school over the past decade.
When I chose my "nom de Substack", Finem Respice, I took its literal meaning as "consider the end", but also as "consider the consequences". Or "what could go wrong?". People choosing the left are literally (i.e. non-pejorative) ignorant, even if they are doctors.
American hospitals were the "killing fields" of 2020-2023, and some still haven't admitted their error. Mostly it's follow the money, but many docs and nurses are ideologically and morally corrupt with no clue about the nature of science. They were taught to be mind-numb robots spewing a certain brand of medical knowledge (again, follow the money). Unfortunately, many run-of-the-mill Americans have been gaslighted (gaslit ?), even most of my conservative Christian friends and family. There are glimmers of light that will cleanse this epidemic of insanity , but we are in a sad, and evil, state of affairs.
“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.”
― George Orwell
You are seeing a splitting of society. Yes there is a leftest default, and that is bad. But no red pilled person is getting blue pilled, (though opposite is true but very slowly).
As you said in an earlier article, "at some point people stop eating shit." There are die hards, but fewer are clapping and playing along, and fewer with them
It is interesting to go to comedy shows in blue america. Audience is loaded with blue haired liberals, some shows STILL require masks (as a form of lets make sure we got the good people in).
The comedians STILL make un vaccinated jokes, Trump, LBTQ etc. they ALL bomb.)
Wanna hear the joke that got the biggest (but positive) response from liberals?! (out of hundreds, and by far)
"Why do we keep naming teams after Native Americans? It is not like they have a winning record."
The widespread malpractice committed and endorsed by almost every practicing physician in the country over the last four years was terrible.
But even setting that aside, the collapse of private practice and growth of “health systems” has meant the replacement of good medical treatment with good business models. It isn’t about the patient’s needs or the doctor’s ability, it’s about pre-packaged solutions with a one-size-fits-all approach and pushing as many drugs as they can get away with.
I used to have a lot of respect, admiration and trust in the medical profession. Maybe it was warranted at one time, but it’s completely gone now.
It's so much easier to agree than disagree as so many are apt to do. The deitification of George Floyd and identification with “mostly peaceful” protesters is so easy and even easier to vilify January 6 trespassers, no matter how nonviolent. That’s how many, otherwise rational, folks blindly followed the vilification of the Jews in Germany. The penalty for going against the ruling narrative, in both cases, was and is shunning by your employer, your neighbors and even your “friends”. This is the virus of our time, and it has infected every profession and is promoted by our “venerable” academic and government institutions. Early treatment protocols for Covid are still being denied even after the pandemic is over. Life insurance companies are seeing excess deaths of young people that correlate with “vaccinations” that are more akin to gene therapies. Fasten your seatbelts, because the mind and opinion control will only increase in this critical election year.
Is it just me or did anyone else have an overwhelming urge to kick little Ms "White Coats for Black Lives" right in the gut?
I'm actually surprised the leftist law firm allowed a photo of those high-T SEALS, they are just going to make every other man feel weak and impotent. That is mean.
I even see the leftism at our Veterinary hospitals. Rainbow flags on the doors. Social Media posts by some doctors about COVID & wearing masks (during the lockdowns).
Does this phenomena point to a different human tendency other than true political views? The desire, the need to fit it. To be with the in-crowd. Most of my life the left were the 'disagreeable' types. Protesting, burning flags, yelling unpopular slogans, wearing odd clothes, etc.
Today leftism is SOP. It has gone corporate. Mainstream.
When we look at the Big 5, men are usually more disagreeable than women (don't know the exact stats, but broadly speaking). Since leftism is now mainstream and the surge in 'girl bosses' in all industries does not bode well for a turn in corporate leftism any time in the near future.
I wonder how many other 'SEAL turned lawyer Browns' will pull a John Galt from the corporate life? That may be the only method going forward--to leave the corporate gigs husks of subpar mediocrity employing 90% women.
About hospitals, i've seen one of the most respected doctors get fired from the best hospital in my country for disagreeing that covid was serious. I'm glad the guy had a lot of savings from his 25 year long career. Imagine 25 years as a clinician at a top hospital and you're fired over your professional opinion because it doesn't signal the "correct politics". They don't want competence, they want loyalty to the their lunacy.
It will come a point when they will realize they can't have both.
Apparently, the famous Flexner Report, written in 1910 and sponsored by Carnegie and Rockefeller, viewed the medical system, doctors, as political and societal tools. Respected authority figures to influence the "underlings" who sought their help. The aim even back then was technocracy, a centralized system to lead eventually to a world government.
If all of these fields are captured or bullied into submission, doctors, lawyers, teachers, unions, academia, big business, 99% of uni-party government reps and civil servants, entertainment, art,
that just makes us who are out of the cool kids group that much more courageous and our responsibility to defend what is true, right and honorable that much more important..
Woke leftism doesnt just take over hospitals and law firms. It’s taking over engineering, too. Projects which I worked on years ago which would be overseen by a competent municipal manager with a reasonable budget, are now directed by young (mostly) female activists, and these people don’t know what “budget” means. That is, until they go to the bank and get denied for loans. Then they simply turn to the taxpayer with massive municipal tax increases, because problems are only ever solved with more money, and more government management. This is all so they can pay tributes to their gods of “climate change” and “circular economies” and “zero waste”, which make up massive proportions of project cost and provide zero taxpayer benefit. But it does give all the young Mao’ists the warm and fuzzies down in their tummies.
Why I have dumped allopathic docs and am attended to by an Integrated now. Since starting this path 2 years ago, my osteoporosis scans have improved by 40% and my cholesterol is "exceptionally healthy" for the first time since my 20s (I am now 60).
This issue is a problem. Chris is correct about the dichotomization that occurred with the structural economic and regulatory changes that have taken place in healthcare since the introduction of Medicare. There are a goodly number of books about healthcare economics from dissenting voices including Scott Atlas, MD and others, but the gist of the issue is that since the 1960's and the injection of government payment into the healthcare equation, there has been progressive consolidation in allopathic ( meaning not alternative) healthcare in terms of corporate takeovers and buyouts and the inevitable enmeshment of the government agencies with the big corporations - hospital systems, health care insurers, big pharma. This has been no accident. Those of us who can recall the 1990's, besides parachute pants, remember Hillary's ill fated attempt at Hillary Care, which was basically what Obama got done with a questionable assist from the SCOTUS to enact Obamacare. The goal at one level is consolidate and incentivize the industry into a manageable ( for the government ) number of large players through regulatory and financial mechanisms. While they tell you they want to save you money, they don't really care about costs. They keep going up rapidly. And after all it's not their money. It's your money. So the cost savings argument made by the socialized medicine crowd is a misdirection play. At that point, you can do many things to the industry. You can mandate behavioral changes through carrots and mostly sticks. If a doctor rolls his eyes or sighs because a nurse or somebody at the corporate healthcare facilty screws up, and that doctor is a little too independent, they can force him/her into disciplinary proceedings. There is a draconian process with very little if any due process. If they want to make your life miserable, they can do it. The process is the punishment. So the doctors are disincentivized from sticking up for themselves or their patients when it conflicts with the corporation's objectives. They have them by the short hairs. We have also seen the state medical boards and specialty certification boards bully doctors during COVID for standing up for truth in science and questioning the dominant narrative. Thus we end up with a semi-seamless integration between the government and big healthcare. The formula is pretty simple. They buy off the big guys and they punish the small guys. In this way healthcare was a canary in the coalmine for other sectors of the economy.
So the corporate and academic physicians who are employed by large systems and incentivized financially and in other ways by the systems adopt the ideology promulgated by the system. If they don't, they keep their mouth shut. Failing that, they get the message to quit or get fired for being a pimple on the ass of the hospital system. This is identical to the big corporate law firms, and academia in general.
So in private practice where I live, many docs are conservatives. But we are a minority. It's uncomfortable for a lot of reasons, because even if we are not employees, we are subject to hospital bylaws and threats from government and insurance companies. There are plenty of levers that these entities can pull if they want to which will drop you in the shit. This is a significant reason for me to practice with as little exposure to the system as possible.
Just like many lay people I talk to, I no longer trust many of my colleagues to do the right thing under duress. I no longer trust the results of a lot of research that has come out or the pharmaceutical industry, or the orthodox medical structure ( although I've thought them to be a bunch of ponces for as long as I can remember). Medical schools are indoctrinating DEI crap into the students. And the schools absolutely do not want original thinkers. They want to produce a uniform product. It's a scary situation. The political evolution and capture of US healthcare is shameful because it has resulted in dead and injured patients, and a total DISREGARD for real science and independent inquiry. On the patient side, suffice it to say that you need to be your own advocate. The other massive problem is that the cost structure, again like everything the Feds do, is totally unsustainable. It's ridiculously expensive to get sick or buy medications. The system will collapse at some point. I don't know when, but it's not possible to continue like this. We either end up like Canada or the UK, which suck btw, and go broke more slowly while denying care, or go bankrupt. Cash pay, which seems anachronistic, may turn out to be the most efficient and honest way to buy healthcare. Everything is transparent and if a genuine marketplace emerges, costs would come down. Don't hold your breath.
I'm a librarian, go ahead and ask me about ideological capture in my profession. But before you do, I and my few like-minded colleagues have to attend to our cellar samizdat printing press and HAM radio in our isolated cabin in Northern Ontario in order to question placing Blow-Job How To Books in the kids' section of the library. Be right back...
Commissar archipelago. Mengele would be proud of modern American doctors. I wouldn’t trust my life with anyone who went to med school over the past decade.
When I chose my "nom de Substack", Finem Respice, I took its literal meaning as "consider the end", but also as "consider the consequences". Or "what could go wrong?". People choosing the left are literally (i.e. non-pejorative) ignorant, even if they are doctors.
American hospitals were the "killing fields" of 2020-2023, and some still haven't admitted their error. Mostly it's follow the money, but many docs and nurses are ideologically and morally corrupt with no clue about the nature of science. They were taught to be mind-numb robots spewing a certain brand of medical knowledge (again, follow the money). Unfortunately, many run-of-the-mill Americans have been gaslighted (gaslit ?), even most of my conservative Christian friends and family. There are glimmers of light that will cleanse this epidemic of insanity , but we are in a sad, and evil, state of affairs.
“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.”
― George Orwell
You are seeing a splitting of society. Yes there is a leftest default, and that is bad. But no red pilled person is getting blue pilled, (though opposite is true but very slowly).
As you said in an earlier article, "at some point people stop eating shit." There are die hards, but fewer are clapping and playing along, and fewer with them
It is interesting to go to comedy shows in blue america. Audience is loaded with blue haired liberals, some shows STILL require masks (as a form of lets make sure we got the good people in).
The comedians STILL make un vaccinated jokes, Trump, LBTQ etc. they ALL bomb.)
Wanna hear the joke that got the biggest (but positive) response from liberals?! (out of hundreds, and by far)
"Why do we keep naming teams after Native Americans? It is not like they have a winning record."
Funny how these doctors can diagnose looooong covid with any symptoms...but they can't diagnose their own terminal case of looooong TDS.
The widespread malpractice committed and endorsed by almost every practicing physician in the country over the last four years was terrible.
But even setting that aside, the collapse of private practice and growth of “health systems” has meant the replacement of good medical treatment with good business models. It isn’t about the patient’s needs or the doctor’s ability, it’s about pre-packaged solutions with a one-size-fits-all approach and pushing as many drugs as they can get away with.
I used to have a lot of respect, admiration and trust in the medical profession. Maybe it was warranted at one time, but it’s completely gone now.
It's so much easier to agree than disagree as so many are apt to do. The deitification of George Floyd and identification with “mostly peaceful” protesters is so easy and even easier to vilify January 6 trespassers, no matter how nonviolent. That’s how many, otherwise rational, folks blindly followed the vilification of the Jews in Germany. The penalty for going against the ruling narrative, in both cases, was and is shunning by your employer, your neighbors and even your “friends”. This is the virus of our time, and it has infected every profession and is promoted by our “venerable” academic and government institutions. Early treatment protocols for Covid are still being denied even after the pandemic is over. Life insurance companies are seeing excess deaths of young people that correlate with “vaccinations” that are more akin to gene therapies. Fasten your seatbelts, because the mind and opinion control will only increase in this critical election year.
Speaking as a retired cyclotron physicist, let me say this. Never trust the science.
Is it just me or did anyone else have an overwhelming urge to kick little Ms "White Coats for Black Lives" right in the gut?
I'm actually surprised the leftist law firm allowed a photo of those high-T SEALS, they are just going to make every other man feel weak and impotent. That is mean.
I even see the leftism at our Veterinary hospitals. Rainbow flags on the doors. Social Media posts by some doctors about COVID & wearing masks (during the lockdowns).
Does this phenomena point to a different human tendency other than true political views? The desire, the need to fit it. To be with the in-crowd. Most of my life the left were the 'disagreeable' types. Protesting, burning flags, yelling unpopular slogans, wearing odd clothes, etc.
Today leftism is SOP. It has gone corporate. Mainstream.
When we look at the Big 5, men are usually more disagreeable than women (don't know the exact stats, but broadly speaking). Since leftism is now mainstream and the surge in 'girl bosses' in all industries does not bode well for a turn in corporate leftism any time in the near future.
I wonder how many other 'SEAL turned lawyer Browns' will pull a John Galt from the corporate life? That may be the only method going forward--to leave the corporate gigs husks of subpar mediocrity employing 90% women.
bsn
About hospitals, i've seen one of the most respected doctors get fired from the best hospital in my country for disagreeing that covid was serious. I'm glad the guy had a lot of savings from his 25 year long career. Imagine 25 years as a clinician at a top hospital and you're fired over your professional opinion because it doesn't signal the "correct politics". They don't want competence, they want loyalty to the their lunacy.
It will come a point when they will realize they can't have both.
Apparently, the famous Flexner Report, written in 1910 and sponsored by Carnegie and Rockefeller, viewed the medical system, doctors, as political and societal tools. Respected authority figures to influence the "underlings" who sought their help. The aim even back then was technocracy, a centralized system to lead eventually to a world government.
If all of these fields are captured or bullied into submission, doctors, lawyers, teachers, unions, academia, big business, 99% of uni-party government reps and civil servants, entertainment, art,
that just makes us who are out of the cool kids group that much more courageous and our responsibility to defend what is true, right and honorable that much more important..
Another VERY GOOD reason for an apple a day...
Woke leftism doesnt just take over hospitals and law firms. It’s taking over engineering, too. Projects which I worked on years ago which would be overseen by a competent municipal manager with a reasonable budget, are now directed by young (mostly) female activists, and these people don’t know what “budget” means. That is, until they go to the bank and get denied for loans. Then they simply turn to the taxpayer with massive municipal tax increases, because problems are only ever solved with more money, and more government management. This is all so they can pay tributes to their gods of “climate change” and “circular economies” and “zero waste”, which make up massive proportions of project cost and provide zero taxpayer benefit. But it does give all the young Mao’ists the warm and fuzzies down in their tummies.
Why I have dumped allopathic docs and am attended to by an Integrated now. Since starting this path 2 years ago, my osteoporosis scans have improved by 40% and my cholesterol is "exceptionally healthy" for the first time since my 20s (I am now 60).