North Korean propaganda poster.
Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick is an astonishing and eye-opening book that takes us inside North Korea, a hermit kingdom. Demick follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years, and chronicles the government induced famine that killed one-fifth of the North Korean population.
North Korea is the most repressive regime on the face of the earth.
Citizens are brainwashed 24 hours a day to believe that the Dear Leader is divine. Christianity is banned. As are all religions.
It’s an Orwellian world where the greatest crime is criticizing Kim Jong Il. Children are encouraged to inform on parents, neighbors routinely spy on neighbors. Informants are rewarded and victims sent to gulags where they subsist on grass and tree bark while they are worked to death. Most prisoners perish within a few months.
Only a priveledged few have televisions, but of course the one channel is run by the state and all you see is schreeching propaganda.
There are no clothing stores. Everyone wears the same shiny, scratchy rayon fabric. Women use rags as menstrual pads.
Public displays of affection are forbidden.
North Korea is also a deeply racist society. When someone is arrested for treason, the secret police also arrest close relatives because their blood is tainted. North Koreans are told that they are the most exceptional race on the face of the earth. All others, especially Japanese, South Koreans and Americans, are deeply inferior.
Forget cell phones, there are no telephones for the ordinary citizen. Of course, the internet does not exist in North Korea. Though the regime is pouring enormous resources into cyber warfare against American targets.
There are no typewriters. Paper and fountain pens—ball point pens are virtually unknown—are reserved for a few university students.
Not surprisingly, medicine is primitive:
North Korean doctors are expected to serve people selflessly. Because of a shortage of X-ray machines, they often use crude fluroscopy machines that expose them to high levels of radiation; many older North Korean doctors now suffer from cataracts as a result. They not only donate their own blood, but also bits of skin to provide grafts for burn victims…
North Korea is the most purely Communist regime on the face of the earth, hence there are no private industries. The state owns and runs everything. Of course, nothing works. Absolutely nothing. There are no pharmaceuticals. Not even bandages.
Making one’s own medicine is an integral part of being a doctor in North Korea. Those living in warmer climates often grow cotton as well to make their own bandages. Doctors are all required to collect herbs themselves; Dr. Kim’s work unit took off a month in spring and autumn to gather herbs, during which time the doctors slept out in the open and washed every few days. Each had a quota to fill. They had to bring their haul back to the hospital pharmacy, where it would be weighed, and if the amount was insufficient, they would be sent out again. Often, the doctors had to hike far into the mountains because the more accessible areas had already been scoured by ordinary citizens who sought to sell the herbs or use them for themselves.
But by the early 1990′s, the deficiencies in the system became more pronounced. Much of the medical equipment was obsolete and broken down, with spare parts impossible to obtain since the factories in the Communist-bloc countries where they were manufactured were by now privatized. The [government] pharmaceutical factory in Chongin curtailed its production due to a lack of supplies and electricity. There was little money to import pharmaceuticals from abroad.
In fact, the North Korean regime counterfeits millions of American dollars and is deeply involved in the international drug trade. That’s how the regime raises cash, which the malignantly corrupt political class spends on itself.
There was a government induced famine in the 1990′s and millions North Koreans died as a result of starvation and disease. Almost all the foreign aid poured into North Korea was diverted to the army—the fouth largest in the world for a state the size of Pennsylvania—and to the black market. The average North Korean male is five foot three inches tall. Most of the population suffers from stunting caused by lack of nutrition.
But take heart, there is some good news:
North Koreans are entitled to universal health care.
The right to “universal free medical service… to improve working people’s health” is enshrined in the North Korean constitution.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
7 Comments
Good article. Is oral sex profanity? Well anyway talk more about how the north korean government officials forces its citizens to perform sexual acts on them. With our video technology, let’s make a video of kim jung sucking off a black man. Then have blimps with video screens on sides flying over north korea cities showing their divine leader “in action”.
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ProphetJoe is on to something here.
Insurance is supposed to be about managing risk. Routine medical care isn’t a risk; you [i]know[/i] that you’ll be paying for it on a regular basis and that the costs, while significant, are in the same category as mortgage or car payments. Health insurance should properly address low-likelihood, high-consequence illnesses and accidents. Put another way, we need to understand that the “catastrophic” in “catastrophic medical insurance” is redundant.
Still, medical care can be expensive. So you save up for it. I see some possible value in giving big tax breaks to those savings. We already have some provisions in the tax code for medical savings accounts, of course, but if the plan I was offered by my employer is any guide, the provisions are seriously flawed. My company’s plan had no provision for carryover of unused funds at the end of the tax year, for example. This limits how much you can save against the future, which strikes me as a highly undesirable feature.
Then there are those with chronic conditions such as diabetes. I would like to see any regulatory barriers lowered that hinder the development and marketing of chronic condition annuities — a kind of insurance against the development of a chronic and expensive medical condition. You could buy this when you are young and (presumably) healthy; if you develop diabetes at age 50, the annuity would pay a lump sum into your tax-favored medical savings account to cover the likely added lifetime expenses of the condition.
This three-part approach seems so reasonable to me that I am certain it has absolutely no chance of ever being seriously considered by our leaders. Yes, I’ve become that cynical.
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OR:
The problem with health care in America is two-fold: first of all, we pay insurance which typically covers routine expenses, but not catastrophic care — this is counter to most insurance types (car insurance, for example). If we have any government intervention (which I oppose), it should be only for catastrophic care.
Secondly, malpractice claims (i.e. – the lawyers) have driven up the cost of medical care enormously. Neither was addressed (IMHO) under “ObamaCare”.
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If all the government wanted was to make insurance more affordable, they could have taken a few simple steps, such as ending decoupling insurance from the workplace and allowing the sale of insurance across state lines. Those two alone would have gone a long way toward improving matters. Instead, they enshrined in law all kinds of things that will simply make insurance more expensive, not less, such as the requirement to cover people with pre-existing conditions, which makes a mockery of the idea of insuring against risk, and will send costs into the stratosphere. Another foolishness is setting the penalty for not carrying insurance at far less than the cost of insurance. Who would not prefer to pay a small penalty and save thousands. There’s no risk b/c remember, the insurance companies must take you even if you’re already sick. This will mean less people paying premiums, but more collecting when they’re sick, which will drive costs even higher.
What we need is less govermental meddling in healthcare, not more. Let insurance companies sell super-high-deductible catastrophic plans, to provide what most people want from insurance: namely, a safety net in case of catastrophe. At present, these are not allowed, at least here in NJ where I live. Government should not be telling insurance companies what to cover in their plans; it should be left for the free market; if you don’t like this coverage, shop elsewhere.
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OR:
Thanks so much for your comment. I published this post as a means of pointing out that universal health care is an undiluted Communist idea. It was written into the constitution of the old Soviet Union, and in present day Cuba.
Of course, health care in both states was and is dreadful.
But equally dreadful for all.
European universal health care is staggering along and collapsing under its own weight. That’s why so many Europeans—and Canadians—come to America for MRI’s and cancer treatment, the logical result of long waiting times and government health care rationing.
Obamacare has nothing to do with insuring the uninsured—such people get medical care anyway—but is all about big government taking over private enterprise.
Even when Obamacare kicks in, millions will be uninsured.
It’s worth noting that those who attempt to create utopia, always open the doors to hell.
We wish you the best in your medical studies. But be aware, under Obamacare you will not be a physician but a “government health care worker.”
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I am always amazed at the naivete so many in our country have about North Korea – including those 2 “journalists” who were recently caught – allegedly over the border.
They were shocked at their treatment in a labor camp.
OR – I certainly can’t speak for Robert (nor would he want me to) but hostility to this “reform” goes much deeper than the need to provide everyone with health insurance.
It is designed to drive private insurers out – just one example “mandating” them to spend 85% of their premium revenue on their premium payers and not administration.
That of course will dramatically drive up premiums (to account for the gap needed in paying for the costs in running their businesses) – further putting pressure on companies buying the premiums to drop their insurance and “just let the government take care of it”.
It is an odious bill, and there were (are) many ways to get to everyone’s goal of making health care more affordable.
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Robert,
As a frum Jew, a medical student, and a frequent reader, I find it inflammatory and misleading that you post material like this on your blog. I know that many people find the new health plan threatening, and I admit that as a future physician I am not at peace with everything that has been proposed. I do, however, know first hand of the severe need for health insurance for those less fortunate than us who don’t have it. And whether you agree with that or not, posts like these represent propaganda, pure and simple, no better than the “liberal media” which you villify.
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