12.15.2009

Sometimes people say truly Prophetic things.

"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an underground dictatorship… To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic… The Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom."

-Benjamin Rush (1776)
-Signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
-The only MD to attend the U.S. Constitutional Convention.
-America's first Surgeon General.
Rush tried to get medical freedom included in the Constitution and failed, unfortunately. Now his words have come true.

--UPDATE--
For some info on the authenticity of this quote:
Some say the attribution is questionable. Others cite sources such as
Rush, Benjamin & Corner, George Washington ; The autobiography of Benjamin Rush; his "Travels through Life" together with his Commonplace Book for 1789-1813, ed. with introd. and notes by George W. Corner. Now first printed in full from the original manuscripts in possession of The American Philosophical Society and The Library Company of Philadelphia. ; Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1948. Art and Medicine

Still others cite (Grinspoon; 2003: 63; Lord,2 1994)

6 comments:

SarahB said...

This is now my favorite blog posting on healthcare. Very profound find.

Sic Ibid said...

I'm honored Sarah! And Keep watching WC. Lots of profound and detailed posts pop up here.

W.C. Varones said...

I'm a little skeptical of that quote. The phraseology is a little too current and convenient.

I'm worried this is another Professor Steven Tytler internet legend.

SarahB said...

The plot thickens! Sounds like a thesis in the making.

Adam said...

This whole free lunch thing forced on us by the govt can only last for so long, eventually we'll have to pay the piper for the reckless decisions of our government. And I think that until the govt addresses the basic structural problems in our financial system of too much debt, we will not have a sustainable recovery. So while the stock market can stay irrational in the shorter term, in the long run I believe it will go back to reflecting the fundamentals of our boom and bust economy. And that's why I still feel that for long term investors a better portfolio allocation is in cash and gold. I think the gold price will continue to rise due to a lack of faith in central banks' policies and in fiat currencies. I recently read a good article on this topic called Gold Price Wobbles Under $1,130 But U.S. Dollar Future Bleak, which discusses the relationship between the dollar, the gold price, and gold mining companies as a result of the Federal Reserve's monetary policies. I thought it was especially helpful for investors to read to get a better sense of the relationship between these asset classes given all the uncertainty in the economy.

Archie said...

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Archie

Happy Super Tuesday!