Welcome to Gaia! ::

As a lot of people are surely aware of the reform of the United State's healthcare system, I was interested in hearing thoughts on how such a system would function in an anarchist-(insert socialist group here) society, and your thoughts on the proposed healthcare reform in the U.S.

Firstly, I've been pretty laid back politically lately, really I just allowed my self to get side tracked in the petty arguments with family members, and people online, I've been ignoring the current situation with healthcare reform, and don't know a lot about what's being proposed, and I have a hard time shifting through conservative propaganda, and liberal propaganda, and fact.
I read in the Socialist Standard January 2009 edition though, that a lot of socialists do not think Obama himself is really a socialist. (Much to the dismay of our conservative media outlets! Ha!)
I'm inclined to agree that he's hardly a socialist, and is just another neo-liberal policy maker, similar to the Clinton's.
So, if anyone is aware of what's currently going on, and you have some sources you could recommend me too, I would be very thankful to you.

Nextly; I often wonder how healthcare would be ran in an anarchist society of the socialist kind.
I fully believe there are people out there who really do enjoy saving lives, offering medical advice, etc; but I also believe that a lot of the people in medicine now are largely in it because of the amount of money people can make as a doctor.
In a society of anarchists where the transition from capitalist-state society to anarchism was a rather quick revolution, I believe there would be a shortage of doctors who would be willing to help people free of charge, or at least be unwilling to help people in a gift economy of sorts.
Perhaps if the transition from state to anarchism was slowly brought in, we could manage to keep a larger bulk of doctors who would be willing to help people simply for the joy of helping people, because they would be more educated on how the society functions, and would be more accepting of it since there was no bloody violent short lived revolution.
Or am I wrong?


And with that, I would like to say, I think this guild has a chance of breathing with life once again!
Right now it feels like a scarcely visited club house, aside from me and bootlog.
blaugh

Ok hi lol

I should say, more like the bar you go to at 8 pm and it just opened and you're the only one there and you feel kinda stupid for being the first guy so you go to the bar order a beer and watch the tv hoping someone will come soon lol.

Okay on to the topic.

Ummmmmmmmm... I guess the actual answer is really short: You have two choices, anarcho-capitalist and anarcho communist society.

In the capitalist one you just buy it, as you would in any private hospital. Since there is no government, no small group of criminals will try to get their hands on tax money. I've heard from anarchocapitalists that the reason medical care in the usa is so expensive is because of the AMA getting their hands on tax money and making it really expensive to become a doctor in america, because you have to pay lots of fees to the AMA or you go to jail. Once these AMA criminals are rid of, the free market will compete till prices are down and most people will be able to afford healthcare. There are also charities in anarchocapitalism for those people who want to help out "the poor".

In anarchocommunism, the doctor will probably be like "hmm I need to eat something, and I could use new shoes..." and he'll go to an office/assembly/whatever it is that they're doing in that community and he'll sign a contract that will say "by signing this paper I agree to give away all of my labour to the community; who have all signed this same contract, and I will work x hours a week. The community in return will reasonably give me whichever goods and services I may need, according to whatever the community rationing of products may be."

Something like that. lol.

Both have their ups and downs I think. Capitalism's being surplus value lol.

EDIT: Hopefully the contract will have a timeframe so that you can opt out of the contract next year if you want? sounds good to me.

Agree completely on the janitor thing, did you read that somewhere? As for AMA, tru dat.