Medical Fascism

The indictments clearly stated that because the placenta reports were reported after the babies were discharged, the work was medically unnecessary, and billing for them was fraud. By now the federal government and the lawyers had financially exhausted both pathologists. They pleaded nolo contendere to one count of “felony tardy placenta report,” and both are now on probation. The amount of “fraud” admitted was $44. The price of the investigation to taxpayers was millions of dollars. The price paid by the patients of The Hospital is incalculable: it includes lawyers’ fees, as well as the increased prices and lowered quality that result from monopoly control of a service. The events described here are by no means singular. The underlying problem is that the agencies entrusted with protecting the public may be in collusion with the very same corporations from which the public needs protection. This is called the “public-private partnership” these days. Previously, it was called “fascism.” The effect on the practice of medicine is pervasive even if most practitioners are neither participants in nor victims of the resulting abuses. The climate of fear influences everyone. The massive 60-agent FBI raid of April 2001 and the resulting $2-million dollar “Diagnosis for Hire” pathology conspiracy theory investigation netted only the plea bargains described above. But diagnosis for hire does occur, in a different sense–and so does treatment (or lack thereof) for hire, when patients and physicians relinquish their control over medicine to megacorporations and government