In return for a 10 billion
bailout for Cyprus, the EU bureaucrats have demanded a bailin (read
confiscation) of Cypriots’ savings and checking accounts. One bank offered
worthless shares but another did not. Cypriots felt that they were used as “guinea
pigs” to test if the scheme worked before they tried it in other places like
Italy, Spain, and Greece. The confiscation of depositors’ money was dubbed in
Cyprus the euphemism “the haircut.”
The European Union, the
European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, a.k.a. the Troika*
(Russian for a three-way alliance) have required 40-60 percent confiscation of
depositors’ money from the Bank of Cyprus in exchange for worthless shares and
100 percent confiscation from the Bank of Laikh; if a person had 100,000 euros
in the bank, he/she was lucky to get a few cents back, said The Foreign
Correspondent in a 30 minute documentary. Even the capital of small businesses
had been commandeered and frozen, leaving employers unable to meet payroll and thus
laid off workers. The economy became so depressed, the unemployment grew to thirty
percent.
Cypriots were allowed to withdraw
small amounts of money per day (200 euros) in order to prevent a run-on-banks.
Easy credit and off shore investments encouraged by low taxes and relaxed regulations
attracted a lot of banking to Cyprus and real estate exploded.
Michael Sarris, Finance
Minister, said, “We were financing consumption beyond our means, causing a real
estate bubble.” Following the Troika’s announcement of the “haircut” which the
producers dubbed the “scalping,” the bubble burst and the real estate market crashed,
causing a drop in property value of 50 percent.
“We do not deserve this
harsh and cruel treatment,” said Sarris. Retirement savings were partly gone. The
poor and the sick were hurt the most. The government did not provide the
socialized medical care it had promised its citizens. And we are only talking
about a small number of people, this island has less than one million
inhabitants. Because the government was out of money and could not and would
not pay for hospital care and other essential medical care for cancer patients,
charities had to step in via month by month donations.
Charities such as The Association of Cancer Patients and
Friends lost about 100,000 euros in the forced confiscation (30 percent). Narcissistic
EU bureaucrats thought they knew better what was good for the people. Charitable
donations were barely trickling in because so many Cypriots were still
unemployed, broke, and dependent on food banks.
Why would EU and Cypriot bureaucrats
not take into account the human cost of their decisions? The answer is simple, arbitrary
and deep cuts made from a nicely appointed office do not carry the faces of
individuals suffering the results of their cutthroat decisions.
The cancer palliative care
to the end of life of 1,500 patients is run in people’s homes; a nurse visits every
day to administer treatment. A relatively young patient in a lot of pain who
had had a radical mastectomy was treated at home. Her dressings were changed daily by a nurse
who came to her home. Her husband, an Australian citizen residing in Cyprus,
had to take a job in Australia in order to ship home needed money.
“Many patients like her
will die at home without any medical support,” said the palliative care nurse. “It
is a human right to give pain medication.”
It is certainly inhumane
to let people suffer physically, mentally, and economically the consequences of
the actions of a few who took advantage of unregulated banks and gambled with
other people’s money, overinvesting in real estate and then making the poor and
innocent bailout the country, rewarding the bank hucksters for their greed.
Hollywood has told us
repeatedly in commercials, testimonials, expertly done glossies, and
documentaries how wonderful medical care is in Europe, Venezuela, Cuba, China, and how we should emulate those Fabian socialist/Marxist
models.
The reality is that the health
care system in Venezuela is in severe crisis after years of “government
mismanagement and currency controls.” There are 19,000 cancer patients but 70
percent of radiotherapy machines are not operable. As it is the case in other
socialist/communist countries, patients must buy their own medical supplies
because the medical system is overwhelmed by supply shortages and inadequate or
broken down medical equipment to treat those with otherwise treatable tumors.
Venezuela’s healthcare is
free and universal, guaranteed in the 1999 Constitution, but what good is that
guarantee if treatment and drugs are not available? It’s not that Venezuela
cannot afford to foot the bill – the country sits on the largest proven oil
reserves. In spite of that, according to
the AP, nine out of 10 hospitals have only 7 percent of the supplies they need.
When Hugo Chavez took office, 200 public hospitals “were largely replaced by a
system of walk-in clinics run by Cuban doctors that won praise for delivering
preventative care to the neediest but do not treat serious illnesses. There are
now 100 fully functioning public hospitals.” (Frank Bajak, Doctors Say
Venezuela’s Health Care in Collapse, Associated Press)
A friend sought chemo treatment in one of the 400 private Venezuelan hospitals that rely on importation of drugs, equipment, and supplies. She did not make it. Her mom had knee replacement surgery in Caracas a few years ago. For 24 hours, no nurse checked her vital signs, they just stuck their heads in the door and did not disturb her because she appeared to be sleeping. She was paralyzed from a blood clot and never recovered.
My friend always told me
how much cheaper procedures were in private hospitals in Venezuela. She flew
there often for private care. She did not understand that the government price
ceilings (caps) on procedures did not reflect the actual economic cost for the
hospital – her government-enforced price was just a fraction of the real cost.
The hospital had to absorb the difference.
Although Venezuela’s
private hospitals have only 8,000 beds, said Frank Bajak of AP, “they treat 53
percent of the country’s patients, including 10 million public employees with
health insurance.” Bajak quoted Dr. Jose Luis Lopez, “The health care crisis is
an economic crisis. It is not a medical crisis.”
And it looks like the
United States is going in the same direction with the unaffordable Affordable
Care Act. The non-existent health care crisis will be turned into a nightmare.
Instead of fixing the insurance system and promoting tort reform, the
government is destroying the best health care system in the world. Instead of
expanding care to a few million uninsured or underinsured, we are destroying
the existing health insurance and care of half of our population because
liberals have been salivating over one-payer government insurance and rationed
care for years. Progressives are now succeeding because the low information
masses have chosen Hollywood’s heavily advertised Castro Care.
What is happening in
Venezuela today has happened in communist Romania I experienced. There was no
anesthesia for elective surgery or dental care, equipment was broken, held with
duct tape, inoperable, leaky and rusty pipes were present everywhere; foul
odors, an overwhelming stench, and blood stains on peeling walls and floors overwhelmed
the senses. Medical personnel fled abroad just like Romanian doctors fled to
the European Union.
The wasteful socialist system
in Venezuela buys medical supplies via Cuba, China, and Argentina instead of
directly from the supplier. “The Cuban-run program of 1,200 clinics is a
politically motivated waste of billions,” said Dr. Jose Felix Oletta as quoted
by the AP. The clinics do not vaccinate or perform PAP smears resulting in a
comeback of diseases like malaria, Dengue fever and more women dying of cancer
or in child birth.
The problem with Chavez’
utopia was that poor people believed his rhetoric, they adored him for
establishing anti-poverty programs and clinics for sniffles, they constantly
voted for him, but many who applied for government benefits did not get them
and neither did they get treatment when they became seriously ill with cancer
or other ailments.
*Troika, for any Russian generally means a Tribunal consisting of three persons, each representing the prosecutor, the defense, and the judge. They served as an instrument of terror, condemning to death dozens, sometimes hundreds of people in one day.
