Incremental Socialism --- A Glimpse of the Big Picture

Feature Article

Incremental Socialism --- A Glimpse of the Big Picture

Robert P. Gervais, MD

"Health care reform is phased in by population, beginning with children.... Kids First is really a precursor to the new system."(1)

The "new system" which is being slowly and incrementally imposed on all of us is none other than socialism. The latter, as will be shown, is not limited to health care. To find evidence of this fact all one need do is peruse various government documents pertaining to daycare centers, schools and its associated school-based clinics, kidcare and labor to uncover that a variety of programs, primarily focused on, but not limited to children, are currently being implemented which will have the effect of propelling us towards the statist goal of a totally managed economy.(2)

For statists, total control of society cannot begin too early. That is why California daycare centers are being targeted for total takeover. The latter will probably serve as the template to be imposed on all states. Evidence of this government consolidation can be found in a document entitled "California Children and Families First Initiative."(3)

Economics professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo states it thusly: A program will be created "for the purposes of promoting, supporting and improving the early development of children through the setting of 'appropriate standards' for all daycare providers."(4)

In other words, a paternalistic central government will determine how daycare providers will influence young minds thereby assuring that they will be "ready to learn" (a phrase used by central planners) --- more government approved propaganda after entering public schools.

Because the government takeover of daycare centers is in it's infancy, it behooves us, therefore, to study a more mature example --- namely schools and school-based clinics --- in order to decipher the modus operandi of central planners who are hell bent on imposing their socialistic will on every facet of our lives. Two quotes will set the tone of this cursory analysis. "The school is the facilitator for all human service agencies."(5) The second quote gleaned from Anita Hoge's article on government control of children states the following: "The whole human race is going to evolve an effective soul of its own --- the cosmic soul of the race --- ushering into existence a new era, a new dawn of unique world order." [Emphasis added.](6)

Having restated the centuries old socialistic mantra, modern day statists needed a new blueprint to guide them in their societal restructuring efforts. The specifications were sketched out at the 1989 National Governor's Association meeting chaired by Governor Clinton.(7) This meeting spawned a document, known as Goals 2000, aimed at restructuring education. Several additional government documents having an equivalent purpose ensued. For the sake of simplicity and clarity all of these can be bundled together and labeled the Goals 2000/Outcome-Based Education/Workforce 2000/Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) --- package.(8) The aforementioned documents provide the theoretical under-pinning for a host of government programs such as school-based clinics, Kidcare (i.e., expansion of Medicaid), Careers Bill, School to Work Bill, etc. Needless to say, these documents and programs interdigitate into one another for the sole purpose of molding children such that they adopt the "one cosmic soul" mentioned above.

While the prior documents focus on education, two sibling documents emerged soon thereafter. The first, known as the Clinton Health Care Task Force documents, describes how socialized medicine is to be implemented via managed health care. The second, already mentioned, is the"California Children and Families First Initiative," a federally conceived and subsidized daycare program probably designed to metastasize from California to every state of the Union.

But achieving socialism in a country whose citizens remain vaguely wedded to the vanishing concept of free markets proved to be a challenge for central planners. To circumvent that obstacle statists decided to ingeniously employ money (i.e., a bribe or incentive) and a stable of full time intellectuals dedicated to hoodwink (i.e., alter the mindset) of unsuspecting legislators and citizens into approving laws which are laden with free market rhetoric, but whose real substance entrenches statism. To the delight of central planners, both copious amounts of money and a plethora of skilled left-leaning intellectuals, were readily found residing under the roofs of tax exempt foundations.

The latter possess the financial means to fund projects, pilot programs, etc., which not surprisingly always ends up furthering their socialistic agenda. For example, in 1988, the Carnegie Foundation donated $691,000 to the National Governor's Association Center for Policy Research.(9) In 1995, in the author's State of Arizona, the local chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics accepted $200,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.(10) This grant was donated prior to the introduction of the Arizona version of the federal Kidcare program. Who knows if this money was instrumental in convincing Arizona pediatricians to enthusiastically support Kidcare, which they did. Kentucky accepted a $299,500 contract from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to institute managed health care à la Clinton.(11) Since 1990, Pennsylvania has received $75 million in foundation grants.(12) Not surprisingly, these grants have leftist ideological strings attached.

As stated above, foundations not only grant money, but also provide intellectuals to write documents, which are used to entice gullible legislators into passing statist laws. For example, Michael Cohen, a Carnegie Foundation "graduate" wrote Goals 2000 under education secretary Richard Riley.(13) Carnegie's National Center for Education and the Economy's president, Marc Tucker --- pal of Michael Cohen and Hillary Clinton --- was a leading intellectual promoting Workforce 2000(14) which is closely linked to outcome-based education and to managed health care. In addition, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation fellows are strategically placed in the offices of federal legislators such as Senators James Jeffords (R-VT), Tom Daschle (D-SD), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Paul Wellstone (D-MN), John Breaux (D-LA), and Bill Frist (R-TN).(15)

But foundations and their allies are acutely aware that money and leftist intellectuals do not suffice. They have correctly concluded that the addition of a free market sounding "tool" is required to dupe legislators and unsuspecting citizens to "willingly" embrace socialism. That tool, known as public-private partnerships, is an arrangement which formed the backbone of the 1930s German and Italian economic model.(16) Even though the latter system (i.e., National Socialism) failed miserably, statists erroneously maintain that the repackaging of this ill-conceived system in free market Orwellian doublespeak will somehow make it work.

In order to grasp the public-private partnership concept, a few examples will be discussed. The first example is taken from the school-based clinic program based in the author's state. In Arizona, the federal government (public partner) has joined forces with Deloitte and Touche (the private partner) to institute school-based clinics as follows. For a 17 percent fee(17) sharing arrangement Deloitte and Touche assists schools in obtaining a partial hospitalization provider number which effectively transforms schools into de facto mini-hospitals. Once schools become licensed health care facilities, they can legally tap into the public partner's purse (schools are in effect bribed into joining the program) to gain access to virtually limitless taxpayer funds which can then be used to pay for "remedial" services as defined and codified in the Medicaid Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.(18)

If one reads the Medicaid codes, which are imbued with psychological diagnoses, one comes to realize that schools have been empowered to remediate all children who fail to adopt the politically correct psychosocial values. Terms are redefined such that virtually all children qualify for psychological counseling. Put another way, because Medicaid dollars can dramatically enhance a school's revenue, they are incentivized to transmogrify themselves from academic institutions into psychotherapeutic entities whose goal is to modify behavior.

Additionally, if one reads the Medicaid codes while simultaneously perusing the goals of outcome-based education, a mental beacon is lit which brightly evinces the fusion of health care to education. The relationship is made clear by the fact that outcome-based education mandates "mental health outcomes."(19) In other words, government-managed education and health care are structured to compliment one another thereby facilitating the imposition of the "one cosmic soul" concept on children.

Another example of a public-private partnership is managed health care. As previously stated, central planners use a bribe in concert with disingenuous free market rhetoric in order to alter mindsets and to further their agenda. Managed health care is no exception to their rule. Patients are pushed into managed care (bribed) by the offer of virtually limitless free health care. Doctors are prodded (bribed) into joining by the virtual guarantee of an expanded patient base conveniently handed to them on a wooden platter (not silver) by managed care fiat.

Insurance companies are cajoled into offering the managed care product by laws, which permit them to legally transfer insurance risk to providers. Business approves of HMOs because they understand that health care premiums will fall if most doctors are "placed at financial risk" for providing health care.

Once doctors accept the carrot, the managed care industry, guided by the public partner, will be in a position to use a variety of sticks to alter their mindset. Paying doctors more to do less is one such stick (i.e., doctors cease being traditional doctors who profit from curing the sick in order to become de facto insurance physician-technocrats who profit by gaining access to healthy client lists and by avoiding the ill). Another stick is shrouded in terms such as outcomes, standards and guidelines which doctors must obey to avoid being delisted. Likewise, school teachers and daycare center operators are, or will be, subject to virtually identical behavior modifying, imperatives(20) (i.e., delisting in order to assure that the planned society will be manned by a cadre of anointed professionals who pay homage to socialistic principles).

At this point, the reader is aware that the public-private partnership concept has infiltrated daycare centers, schools, and health care. But, there is more. These partnerships are also permeating labor via the government initiative known as Workforce 2000. For example, T.G.I. Friday's, Motorola, Xerox, and M.C.I. have already been duped into embarking on the leaky National Socialistic ship.(21)

But the statist quest will be for naught if National ID number laws fail to be enacted. Without the latter, central government computers, which are the eyes and ears of central planners,(22) are unable to use our stored personal information to control us. Quash the computers and statism is emasculated. That is why a multitude of laws, such as the Kassebaum-Kennedy law,(23) have been enacted to assure the success of the nefarious National ID program.

It should be obvious to all that if central planners are to succeed in molding citizens to conform to group goals (collectivist mentality), flexibility (moral relativism as opposed to moral absolutism), and interdependence (rather than independence and self reliance),(24) central computers are essential for central planners to ascertain whether or not they have successfully resculptured the minds of "the human race" to adopt the "one cosmic soul."

Even though the historian Paul Johnson(25) has conclusively demonstrated that government planning has been repeatedly tried in the twentieth century only to repeatedly fail, America is at risk of entering the next millennium espousing socialistic principles while euphemistically claiming to be the land of the free. Hopefully, there will be a rediscovery of the freedom principles, which propelled this great nation to its preeminent position in the world, before it is too late.

References

1. Kids First Coverage Preliminary Staff Walking Paper, National Archives, AAPS disk #017.
2. Rohrer SE. The medicalization of the schools - Kidcare through the school door. Medical Sentinel 1998;3(1):12.
3. DiLorenzo TJ. The Free Market, The Ludwig Von Mises Institute, June 1998. p. 7.
4. Ibid., p. 8.
5. Frontline: Prescription For Success. Instructional Support Initiative. Pennsylvania Department of Education, Vol. 1, Issue 3, March 1993.
6. Hage A. Womb to tomb. Media Bypass Magazine, p. 36. (Anita Hage is quoting Harris, Obadiah Silas, Self-Knowledge and Social Action, The Cosmic Soul, 1974, p. 84.)
7. Rohrer, op. cit., p. 13.
8. Eakman BK. Cloning of the American Mind, Huntington House Publishers, 1998, p. 301.
9. Ibid., p. 126.
10. Internet http://www.rwjforg/text.html
11. McMenamin B. Trojan horse money. Forbes, Dec. 16, 1996, p. 214.
12. Ibid., p. 126.
13. Eakman, op. cit., p. 311.
14. Ibid., p. 350.
15. Pembianco RV. Hillary - Care moles, National Review, May 19, 1997, pp. 40-41.
16. AAPS pamphlet #1064, Business Under the Nazis by Ralph R. Reiland, Nov. 1998; preprinted, Free Market, Oct. 1998, Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
17. Arizona School Contract with Deloitte and Touche.
18. Hage, op. cit., p. 31.
19. Ibid., p. 31.
20. Eakman, op. cit., p. 87.
21. Ibid., p. 355.
22. Rothbard M. The Logic of Action Two. The Politics of Political Economists, Hartnollo Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwell, Great Britain, p. 218.
23. Medical Sentinel 1998;3(6):205.
24. Eakman, op. cit., p. 274.
25. Johnson P. Modern Times, revised 1991 edition, Harper R. Perennial (Division of Harper Collins Publishers).

Dr. Gervais is an ophthalmologist in Mesa, Arizona.