Doctors fear Vancouver clinic will be privatized
Kudos to these doctors:
Doctors at a long-running Vancouver medical centre are threatening to quit if an attempted takeover is successful, because they’re worried their prospective new boss will try to privatize the clinic.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/07/31/bc-clinic.html
August 1, 2007 at 6:29 am
Yeah, I saw that earlier. There are a lot of doctors there who do have consciences.
August 1, 2007 at 4:41 pm
For sure!
August 1, 2007 at 11:50 pm
While I don’t know this to be the case in this instance, I remember reading an article about a similar situation several years ago (in England I believe), but the salient part in that case was that the doctors and staff in the SM (socialized medicine) clinic were limited to a certain number of hours a week (and no weekends) and were paid a fixed amount, but when the clinic was taken over by private enterprise, and turned into a 24 hour a day clinic, the doctors hours increased (along with their salaries), but they opposed it (and a few quit) because of the hours involved! They didn’t want to give up their precious time off for golf, fishing and tennis to actually have to, horror of horrors, care for patients!
August 2, 2007 at 4:21 pm
I don’t know if those hours were the issue in the Vancouver clinic. I like to believe that those doctors were acting for more altruistic reasons, like genuinely caring about the patients who may not be able to afford the clinic once it is private.
August 2, 2007 at 4:29 pm
V,
I really don’t see that as the issue. Vrsnik clearly stated that he had no intention of changing anything, and that it was his intention to retain the same services that are currently being provided at the clinic. Basically, from what was written in the story, the doctors and staff are throwing a hissy-fit because they don’t like the fact that he ALSO provides a fee based clinic. Seems to me that these doctors need to grow up and keep the best interests of the patients in mind rather than worrying about the operational end of the business, after all, if they were businessmen and not just doctors (like we have here in the States), they’d have their own practices.
August 2, 2007 at 5:29 pm
S,
Most doctors here DO have their own practices here too. I still think the doctors in that Vancouver clinic were acting in good faith. They simply do NOT want the clinic to be privatised, which would shut out many patients who cannot afford private health care.
August 2, 2007 at 10:48 pm
V,
Why does it always have to be a “zero sum gain” with some people? How did you come to the conclusion that anyone would be shut out? The clinic isn’t being shut down, nobody is being turned away, and there’s no indication that the new ‘owners’ are going to “privitize” it. As it clearly states in the article, they’re taking it over to LEARN FROM IT, NOT TO CHANGE IT, and that they are going to continue to provide the SAME PUBLICALLY FUNDED SERVICES. Now I don’t know how much clearer a statement has to be made, but if a private group can provide the same services, more efficiently, and CHEAPER (for the tax payers) than is currently being done, it sounds like an all around WIN for the patients.
August 3, 2007 at 2:34 am
S: Please read this letter to the editor in today’s Toronto Star:
August 3, 2007 at 2:42 am
… And these, also from today’s Star:
http://www.thestar.com/comment/readersletters
August 4, 2007 at 5:10 am
V,
Since you don’t want to listen to any silly uneducated Americans about how things are in Canada, you might want to look up and read a few articles by and about the head of your own CMA, Dr. Brian Day, who also happens to run his own PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT CLINIC.
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Is nationalized health care terminal?
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Posted: August 26, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Canada’s nationalized health-care system, admired by the left all over the world and deplored by the right all over Canada, took another hit last week. The Canadian Medical Association, long its unfailing supporter, suddenly turned against it.
The CMA elected as president Dr. Brian Day, a Vancouver surgeon and one-time supporter of state medicine, who is now an outspoken critic of Canada’s “Medicare” system. In fact, he runs the largest private clinic in the country, offering an array of surgical procedures to people prepared to pay for them. In doing so, he challenges the Canada Health Act, which prohibits for-profit medical practice.
For two reasons, Dr. Day’s election was viewed as a tidal change in the CMA attitude. For one, he not only opposes Medicare, he is one of its most articulate critics. “This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week,” he told the New York Times earlier his year. “Humans can wait two to three years. … In a free and democratic society, where you can spend money on gambling and alcohol and tobacco, the state has no business preventing us from spending our own money on health care.”
Raised in Britain, he came from a socialist family and began by supporting the state system. “But then when you find that your operating room time is cut from 22 hours a week progressively over the years to five hours a week, and you have 450 patients waiting for health care, you realize that something has to give.”
Second, that Dr. Day had to stand for this election at all was an intriguing irregularity. The CMA has a rotating presidency, and it was British Columbia’s turn to provide its chief officer. In the B.C. voting, Dr. Day won handily over the other candidates, all of whom ran on the understanding that the B.C. winner would not be opposed nationally. But one man among them reneged.
Dr. Jack Burak, also of Vancouver, an unreserved supporter of state medicine, decided it was his public duty to force a national election. After all, with an important social cause at stake, why quibble over some trivial moral principle about keeping promises? He campaigned vigorously, probably on the assumption that B.C. doctors may be prepared to allow for-profit medicine but the national body would prove more “truly Canadian.” So the national vote became a referendum on the state system. Dr. Burak and the state system both lost.
Once elected, Dr Day hastened to protest that he does not favor dismantling the public system; he merely thinks Canada needs supplementary private services. This did not reassure Medicare’s defenders, who viewed his election with obvious consternation. “Medicare has been good for patients and it’s been good for doctors,” said outgoing president Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai. “If we begin to put doctors’ interests ahead of patients’ interests … we will lose public trust.”
Added Dr. Danielle Martin, chairwoman of Canadian Doctors for Medicare: “CMA delegates appear to be out of touch with the evidence, with the values of Canadians.” The union-financed Canadian Health Coalition and the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario declared that Day’s election clearly indicated withdrawal of CMA support from Medicare.
This was the second reversal inflicted upon Medicare this summer. In June the Supreme Court, arguably the most liberal judicial body in the Western world, decided that even it was not quite liberal enough to endorse the Medicare monopoly. It thereupon threw out a Quebec ban on private medical insurance. “Access to waiting lists is not access to health care,” observed Justice Jack Major, who wrote the decision.
Long waits for medical and hospital services are the system’s chief symptom of failure. The causes are many, not least a steady exodus of young Canadian doctors to the U.S. – which means, of course, that Canadians are training many doctors to work elsewhere. System proponents, however, cite an exhaustive report on Medicare commissioned by the late Liberal government, authored by Roy Romanow, previously the socialist premier of Saskatchewan. Its conclusion: Spend more money and let the government fix the system.
But more and more Canadians are starting to wonder whether any government can fix much of anything and are ready to contemplate alternatives. Not long ago, for instance, one B.C. surgeon publicly offered to take over the majority of surgeries of the local regional health board and perform them at 60 percent of present cost. The offer was angrily rejected as frivolous. The doctor who made it was Brian Day.
August 4, 2007 at 5:13 am
Another article concerning the same subject.
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Shouldn’t We Have the Right to Choose?
Dr. Brian Day has a cure for Canada’s sick medicare system: private-sector surgery clinics
BY KAREN VAN KAMPEN
From National Post Business
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It’s almost 8 a.m. on Vancouver’s Ash Street. As commuters rush to catch the bus at the corner, few notice a big, burly man struggling to lift himself out of a car. With one hand cradling his side and the other grasping the open passenger door, the man, a six-foot-two RCMP officer, slowly pulls himself up. Pain shoots through him.
To those unfamiliar with the Canada Health Act, what the Mountie will do next might appear to be illegal: He is about to enter a private hospital to undergo surgery. And the RCMP is going to pay for it.
The officer has been off duty for four months, but his sore hip has been plaguing him for years. Now he’s hobbling towards the Cambie Surgery Centre, a brash experiment in Canadian health care where, within an hour, he will jump the public queue and undergo surgery. The surgery will not only free him of pain but save his employer, health insurer and Canadian taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
If the RCMP had waited for the officer to be treated by medicare, here’s what it would have cost in time and dollars. Wait for an MRI: 19 weeks. Wait for surgery: 18 weeks. Cost to the RCMP and its insurer for long-term disability during the year the officer would be off work: $60,000 or more.
But when the RCMP compared these costs to what Cambie offered, the choice was easy. Wait for an MRI (at another private clinic): one week. Cost of the MRI: $700. Wait for surgery: a few days. Cost of surgery: $4,000. Total cost of private care: $4,700. Total time off the job postoperative: three weeks.
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Read the entire article at http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2002/12/choose.html
August 4, 2007 at 5:17 am
And another one from http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/weinreb082806.htm
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Canadian Medical Association, CMA, private healthcare
Dr. Brian Day – the left’s worst nightmare
By Arthur Weinreb, Associate Editor,
Monday, August 28, 2006
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) recently elected Vancouver orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Brian Day, as its president for the 2007 term. Day, who owns a private clinic in B.C., is in favour of more private involvement in Canada’s health care system.
Hopefully by having someone who is in favour of private involvement or private public partnerships (PPP) in the country’s health care system as the head of Canada’s 62,000 doctors the role that the private sector can play in health care can be kept front and centre. Day’s presidency might also help put to rest, the “big lie” that proponents of a totally public health care system have so successfully portrayed in recent years.
The “big lie” is that we now have a totally public health care system and any involvement with the private sector will lead to an “American style” system where the streets will be littered with the bodies of uninsured lower income people who were deprived of life saving procedures because they couldn’t afford to pay for them. At most, what we will end up with is the model that many European countries now have; parallel private and public systems.
Of course, contrary to what many critics say we do not have a totally private system now. Many services are rendered by private health care providers and depending on the province of residency, many medically necessary services (such as optometry in Ontario) have either never been covered by the public system or have been delisted.
The “big lie” was used most effectively by former Prime Minister Paul Martin during the 2004 election campaign. (For those who may have forgotten, Martin was a prime minister of Canada who held office between Jean ChrÈtien and Stephen Harper). While Martin’s own personal physician owned a private clinic in Quebec, Martin accused Harper and the Conservatives of wanting to bring in “American style” health care when some Tories refused to defend a system that was 100% public. This argument didn’t help Martin during the 2005-6 campaign for no other reason than Canadians had a chance to observe Prime Minister Martin in inaction and concluded that he just had to go; there were no drastic changes in many people’s beliefs about private involvement in public health care.
Those on the left who oppose any private participation in health care are solely ideologically driven. They put ideology ahead of people. While many on the left sneer at young Americans who sacrifice their lives for their country they see nothing wrong with Canadians giving up their lives and dying on a waiting list. The whole notion of the use of private public partnerships in the health care system is to reduce wait times and give Canadians more efficient medical care. Sadly, many on the left can only define their country by whether or not medically necessary services such as MRIs are delivered by the private or public sector.
Dr. Day’s election as president elect of the Canadian Medical Association will hopefully keep the debate going. And, if we’re lucky, some of the myths surrounding our health care system will be reduced or eliminated as the debates continue. We need to have serious discussions about the state of the Canadian health care system that are free from the overblown rhetoric of people dying because they cannot afford care.
August 8, 2007 at 3:41 am
As long as we’re talking about the benefits of Socialized Medicine v Private Practice, here’s a story from the Daily Mail (UK) that I find to be quite relevent to the discussion.
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Grandfather ‘killed by blister on his toe from new shoes’
by JAMES TOZER
Last updated at 20:22pm on 7th August 2007
A grandfather died after a blister caused by tight new shoes led to blood poisoning and massive organ failure.
Peter Catterall, 60, was given dressings by a district nurse and told the sore on his toe should heal by itself.
But just over a week later, the retired electrician suffered two heart attacks.
He was taken to hospital and diagnosed with blood poisoning, or septicaemia, and died within a month.
His grieving family said they believed Mr Catterall would still be alive if the severity of his condition had been spotted sooner.
The fatal chain of events began with his new pair of shoes, which made the toes on his right foot rub together and left a painful blister.
The divorced father of three, who was on medication for heart problems and chronic asthma, made an appointment at his local clinic in Shevington, near Wigan, Greater Manchester.
The blister was treated by a district nurse who later discharged him with a pack of dressings and advice on avoiding infection.
But according to his youngest daughter, Sara, 21, the sore continued to weep, and when she went to see him a week later on July 1 he confessed: “This toe is killing me.”
Miss Catterall said yesterday: “I am no nurse, but I immediately knew he had septicaemia because my mum had had it before.
“There was a hole in his foot. I told him he had to go to the doctor but he said: ‘They have discharged me’.”
Unable to reach him by phone the next day, she called round and discovered that he had collapsed.
Mr Catterall was taken to Wigan Infirmary, where he was found to have suffered two heart attacks.
He appeared to rally and clung to life for four more weeks before doctors finally said they could do no more. Now his family wants to know why the clinic did not monitor his condition, given his medical problems.
His older daughter Sharon Gough, 36, a police officer, said: “Our dad didn’t like to make a fuss - if a doctor or nurse told him a wound would heal itself he would take it as gospel.
“We want to know why he was discharged when he was. The wound was obviously still infected and the doctors will have known that it would not heal easily because of the medication he was on.”
Miss Catterall added: “Our dad was a larger-than-life character and we loved him lots. It is because we love him so much that we are determined to get to the bottom of this.”
Mr Catterall remained close to his ex-wife Jennifer. They also had a son Gareth, 37, and four grandchildren.
Ashton, Leigh and Wigan Primary Care Trust, which runs the clinic, said it would look into the case.
Yesterday Aruni Sen, treasurer of the British Association for Emergency Medicine and an A&E consultant, said septicaemia could set in frighteningly quickly.
“You would expect an apparently trivial wound to lead to a simple infection, but on occasions it could result in one that is virulent and aggressive,’ he said.
“At the early stage you can’t tell the difference, but when it spreads into the blood it can lead to organ failure. Patients must go back to their doctor if they’re not getting better.”
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I can just about guarantee you that any ‘private for-profit’ physician here in the US would have scheduled REGULAR follow-up visits with him AT LEAST until the wound had stopped bleeding and weeping, if not until it completely healed just to make sure that there was no blood poisioning, especially given he existing medical conditions!
It’s also especially relevent to read the comments posted on the site such as this gem from N. Simon of London who said “Yet another statistic in the enormous list of breakdowns in the NHS.
Medically, we’re already a 3rd world country.”
August 8, 2007 at 4:17 am
Stra8shooter: All the articles you cite are from far right-wing papers. As for Dr. Day, his lucrative private practice speaks for itself and shows the reason why he so adamantly tries to destroy our public healthcare. What he is saying are themselves ‘myths’.
What happened to the English gent could have been avoided had he persisted in returning to the clinic.
The National Post is known for its extreme right-wing views and promoting US-style policies. So I take their articles with a large dose of salt.
August 8, 2007 at 4:18 am
S: But I must hand it to you, you did a lot of good work ferreting out those articles. You are tenacious. I find that commendable, even if I disagree with you.
August 8, 2007 at 11:06 am
Right Wing papers? Perhaps you should go back and re-check them again, I don’t think there’s a living breathing human being on the face of the planet Earth that would call the Readers Digest a “Right Wing paper”!
As for the English gentleman, if he COULD have returned to the clinic, but since he had already been ‘discharged’ I think you know how long it takes to get an appointment again (WEEKS), in other words, he’s yet another victim of Socialized Medicine consigned to DEATH by your vaunted system.
As for the ‘work’ finding those articles, it took about 30 seconds (including the time it took to type the parameters into the search window and hit “Enter”. There are literally hundreds of articles written every year that are very similar to this one if one is willing but to look.
August 8, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Nevertheless, you did good work in finding them… And yes, I do consider the Reader’s Digest quite right-leaning, and you already know what I think of Fox.
I still feel that our socialised medicine should not be dismantled. No, it is not working as well as some people expect, but that could/should be fixed. Private clinics are unaccessible to those people who are in the lower income brackets. So where would these people go in need of medical services???
August 8, 2007 at 8:04 pm
P.S. btw, you forget that I had LIVED in the US and know what those medical services cost. I had seen the big difference in levels of care, hygiene, etc between the private hospitals and the county hospitals. I had visited friends in both. In the county hospital in L.A. the cocroaches were crawling all over the place and patients were lined up on gurneys in hallways. The heat was stifling. Food was inadequate. (I’m not saying ALL county hospitals are that bad. I was also in the Las Vegas county hospital which was actually quite good.)
I had an elderly relative visiting me when I lived in L.A. He needed refills on his blood-pressure medicine. We went to numerous doctors until we found one who did not charge overly much to take his blood-pressure and write out a prescription. By then, the guy was feeling quite sick and upset, never having had to deal with private clinics, and could not believe the run-around he was getting, and being made to feel as a second-class person because he was reticent to pay the high cost of a short visit to the doctor… One of the main reasons I moved back here was because I was getting older and had health concerns that would have incurred costs beyond my financial capabilities. I personally knew people who had lost everything: homes, businesses, due to a prolonged illness in a family member. And these were hard-working people, NOT ‘leeches’!
I know that you see this differently… But I will not be deterred in my actions toward saving our Canadian medicare. I had actually seen BOTH systems, and maintain that ours is far more equitable and just. The guy who fought so hard for it was Tommy Douglas. He is my hero!
August 8, 2007 at 10:20 pm
V,
The system in Canada may be ‘better’ for some of the financially challenged, but for the rest of us, the system here works just fine, I guess it all depends on how important your health is to you and what you’re willing to pay to make sure you don’t DIE. As I mentioned before, I’ve been ’self insured’ since I got out of the service, by which I mean I pay for all of our medical needs out of my own pocket, and that includes 3 major emergency surgeries, for which I had to make payments! The advantage is that my wife and daughter didn’t have make an appointment and wait for weeks or months to see the doctor (if they had they’d have been DEAD). They went straight from the “urgent care” office to the Hospital, and within 3 hours were in surgery.
You like your system, I prefer ours, they both have problems, the difference is that here we already have free clinics for the financially disadvantaged, as well as all of the local county hospitals providing services for them free or at greatly reduced costs for the “financially disadvantaged” so we have a choice, you DON’T. As for me, I actually LIKE having choices, something about freedom and all that most Americans really do appreciate.
August 8, 2007 at 10:24 pm
OH, BTW, I just LOVE the way you call any news source that doesn’t toe the “Party Line” a “Right Wing” publication. At least when I refer to a publication as a Left Wing rag, I can provide more than ample evidence to support my accusation, but PLEASE, exactly how do you figure that Readers Digest is a “Right Wing” publication. HELL, they’re as close to APOLITICAL as any publication I’ve ever seen, leaning neither Right, nor Left, or when they do, providing BOTH sides of the equation EQUALLY. That hardly qualifies as “Right Wing” to anyone who is intellectually honest.
August 8, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Ok, ok, I’ll retract that bit about Readers Digest.
August 9, 2007 at 4:01 am
Thank you.
Now, is there anything that Dr. Day has said, in any of the three articles that I’ve posted that is demonstrably false, inaccurate, or misleading, and if so, please reply with the specifics of those falsehoods, inaacuracies, or misimpressions and please include substantiation from a source that is at least as credentialed as Dr. Day. You see, to me this subject really isn’t about “Right Wing” v “Left Wing” (regardless of what you may think), it’s about HEALTH CARE, and what is best for an ENTIRE population and not just any particularly small segment of that population (whether that segment be rich OR poor).
October 14, 2007 at 5:31 pm
chirp, chirp, chirp. Anybody?
To continue the discussion, it’s been noted that in the budget for 2007-’08, over 46% of Ontarios entire budget, or $37.9 Bn, is projected to be spent on your Socialized Medicine to cover a population of just over 12 million people. That’s $3158.33 that every man, woman and child is having to PAY OUT in taxes this year, just for health care! It costs less than that here in the States to buy your own Health Care Insurance from a private Insurance Company (and I’m not talking about employer provided insurance, I’m talking about going out and buying your own insurance), and you can go to the doctor any damned time you want to, with no waiting (well, not more than a week for non-emergency visits), and it covers surgeries too!
Face it, it was a nice idea, but you should have known that as soon as the gov’t got their hands on it that they’d screw it up just like all government screw up almost anything they touch. It’s time to drop that silly assed mess and go back to taking care of yourselves and buying your own insurance. After all, you’re ALREADY paying for it in your taxes, so why not let the people decide what kind of insurance they want, and leave it to private enterprise to keep costs competative.
October 17, 2007 at 12:15 am
Get ready Canada, coming soon to YOUR country, DO IT YOURSELF DENTISTRY! That’s right, the original model of “effecient Socialized Medicine” has decayed to the point where people in GB are having to pull their OWN teeth, and perform other dental procedures on THEMSELVES because Socialized Medicine has done such a WONDERFUL job,….NOT!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071015/wl_uk_afp/britainhealthdentists_071015111944
LONDON (AFP) - Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.
Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.
Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping up for private treatment, said the study. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.
More typically, a lack of publicly-funded dentists means that growing numbers go private: 78 percent of private patients said they were there because they could not find a National Health Service (NHS) dentist, and only 15 percent because of better treatment.
“This is an uncomfortable read for all of us, and poses serious questions to politicians from patients,” said Sharon Grant of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health.
Overall, six percent of patients had resorted to self-treatment, according to the survey of 5,000 patients in England, which found that one in five had decided against dental work because of the cost.
One researcher involved in compiling the study — carried out by members of England’s Patient and Public Involvement Forums — came across three people in one morning who had pulled out teeth themselves.
Dentists are also concerned about the trend.
Fifty-eight percent said new dentists’ contracts introduced last year had made the quality of care worse, while 84 percent thought they had failed to make it easier for patients to find care.
Almost half of all dentists — 45 percent — said they no longer take NHS patients, while 41 percent said they had an “excessive” workload. Twenty-nine percent said their clinic had problems recruiting or retaining dentists.
“These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly,” said Grant.
“It appears many are being forced to go private because they don’t want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can’t find a local NHS dentist.”
October 18, 2007 at 3:11 am
S: Yes, I realise we already pay for our ‘free’ universal health care with our high taxes. The only problem with private insurance companies is that they often refuse valid claims. You can’t deny that they do this. So where does that leave the patient requiring treatment who’s been diligently paying his/her health insurance premiums? They must pay out of pocket, no? That would make me more than angry. And yes, you pay less in yearly premiums than we do through our taxes…
As for the NHS dental care that Britain has, we don’t have that in Canada. Here all dental care is private, unless a person is on social assistance, in which case they get very basic dental coverage: extractions and fillings. Crowns, partials, bridges, dentures are not covered.
Our present healthcare system is certainly not what was envisaged by its ‘founder’, Tommy Douglas. But it is still better than paying for something only to be DENIED when treatment is needed.
October 18, 2007 at 2:30 pm
V,
Look, nothing is perfect in this world, least of all when the gov’t gets involved, but willingly advocating for a system where it takes months to be seen (if ever), where the level of care in many cases is substandard to say the least, if available at all, simply because of the concern that your claim MIGHT be denied is rediculous on its face. The only way they can ‘deny’ your claim is if your policy doesn’t cover it, or it’s a pre-existing condition that is specifically not covered by the policy. It is YOUR responsibility to ensure that when you buy your insurance that you know what is, and is NOT, covered under the policy, shop around for the coverage that YOU need, based upon YOUR concerns, for the best price possible. If you have a legitimate claim, and the insurance company refuses to pay, all you have to do is hire an attorney who will represent you for a percentage of the settlement. If he doesn’t collect, he doesn’t get paid, which means he’s going to do everything in his power to get your bill paid, so that he can get paid.
As for the dental in Canada being private, is it not competative, as well as good? The same principles apply for regular health coverage. Competition and the Free Market demand that prices be competative and the care better, otherwise they’re out of business and all those years in medical school have gone to waste. The system in GB is a primary example of this, there’s no competition, the service SUCKS, if you can get it at all, and there’s a severe shortage of Dentists because there’s no incentive for someone to persue a line of work where they’re NOT going to get a sufficient return on their ‘investment’ of time, and money, to go to school for that particular profession.
Mr. Douglas had a wonderful ‘idea’, but like so many others that came before him with their ‘wonderful ideas’ they neglected to account for several key factors like human nature and basic economics 101. This is precisely why Communism has failed; the same factors apply, the founders (Marx and Lenin) failed to take them into account, and therefore doomed it to failure. Communism doesn’t work, Socialism doesn’t work, NO system where the gov’t runs programs not directly related to gov’t itself work, and history has shown this time and time again, some people are just a bit ’slow’ on the uptake due to their ignorance of history, or their own arrogance thinking that the only reason it didn’t work before is because ‘they’ weren’t running it.
A wise man once said that “doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results is the clinical definition of insanity”. Socialism, of any kind, is a primary example of insanity.