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Alternative Radio for December 28, 2009
1:00 PM - 1:58 PM
[Program Website]
Today's Highlight: "Capitalism and Health," with Stephen Bezruchka
Is health care a right or just another commodity, subject to market fluctuations, to be bought and sold? As long ago as 1944, FDR said that health care was a right. A few years later, Truman tried to advance a national health plan. He got nowhere. Our health care system is located in a political economy known as capitalism often euphemistically called the free market. And because of that it is private and profit driven. The critical question which should be asked is: Is Capitalism an efficient cost-effective economic model which produces desirable health care outcomes? Supporters of the status quo say it's working just fine and only needs some fine-tuning. Critics are not so generous. They say if you got the bread you get the care and if you don't, see you in the ER or in the morgue.
Stephen Bezruchka
Stephen Bezruchka teaches at the University of Washington. He worked for many years as an emergency room physician in Seattle. His particular areas of research are population health and societal hierarchy. He is author of numerous articles and essays. He is a contributor to "Sickness and Wealth," a book on the effects of global corporatization on health.
Alternative Radio is a weekly one-hour public affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and on short-wave on Radio for Peace International.
Established in 1986, AR is dedicated to the founding principles of public broadcasting, which urge that programming serve as "a forum for controversy and debate," be diverse and "provide a voice for groups that may otherwise be unheard." The project is entirely independent, sustained solely by individuals who buy transcripts and tapes of programs.
Its "headquarters" is situated to correspond with its position in the mainstream mass media: down an alley, behind a house, on top of a garage in Boulder, Colorado. From this rarefied location, AR's programs manage to reach over 125 radio stations and millions of listeners. AR is part of the non-profit Institute for Social and Cultural Change.
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