Bleeding the Patient

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Bleeding the Patient님의 [저자들에게 보낼 편지] 에 관련된 글.

내가 쓴 한글 편지를 도키가 술 마시고 주루룩 영어로 옮겼다. 비교적 원문에 충실하게. 메일은 어제 보냈다. 물론 서명도 넣어서. 아까 보니까 둘 중 누군가가 메일을 확인한 듯. Dear Dr. David Himmelstein, Steffie Woolhandler, and Ida Hellander, I am Yong-Jun Choi and an assistant professor of Social and Preventive Medicine at the College of Medicine, Hallym University in Korea. I am also an activist of health care and general issues in progressive movements in Korea. I am writing this to have your consent for translating your book "Bleeding the patient" and to get some help as well. You might know that Korean and the US government will start a negotiation on Free Trade Agreement (FTA) sooner or later, which is supposed to be finalized next year. However, there is a growing antipathy among Korean People against the Korean government’s attitude towards the negotiation with the US government as well as the FTA itself. Basically, the FTA and the Korean government at the table with the US government are against the People’s interest in Korea. Many of mass rallies and struggles have been being organized in almost all sectors of Korean society. My friends and I, as a researcher or a university teacher in preventive medicine or public health, are deeply concerned about the perilous effects of the FTA on health care in Korea. The FTA will empower the government initiatives in ’Health Care Industry Acts’ and accelerate of privatization of health care in Korea. We would like to introduce your experience of marketized health care system in the States to Korea and give a warning sign to People as well as policy decision makers by translating your book "Bleeding the Patient" into Korean. Would you happily allow us to translate your book "Bleeding the Patient" into Korean? If so, I would like to ask some questions related to this matter. First of all, do you think your book, published roughly 5 years ago, still represent your views on diagnosis and prescription to the US health care system? If not, what are the facts and points you would like to add or revise in the Korean edition? And would you be willing to help us with this addition or revision? Second, to whom are we supposed to discuss the copyright issues? The "May Day" publishing company that we will work with will contact the publisher (Common Courage Press) directly once we get your consent but it would be extremely helpful if you could write a letter or an email to the Common Courage Press about this matter. Third, could one of you write a preface to the Korean edition? We have explored the publisher and one of our old comrades who now runs a small publishing company "May Day" is very eager to support our plan to introduce your book. And he recommends we have author’s preface and we agreed with his point that it would be an eloquent voice of solidarity with Korean People. And let me talk a bit more of us. We used to be members of a political movement group, which had played a significant role as a pioneer and a think-tank in health care and social welfare. To our regret, we decided to put an end to our group early this spring for many reasons and our fifteen-year long activity including some years of student movement will be cherished in the history of Korean progressive movement as well as at our heart. But, we still share the same goal and work closely together in many areas of activities and research. Hyungguen Park, assistant professor in Preventive Medicine at Cheju National University, Deokhee Yi, Research Fellow at Health Economics Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen and I will be in charge of the whole process of translation. We will have more researchers and university teachers in translation because it is very crucial to have this book introduced to Korean People as soon as possible. We would like to make small contribution to the struggles of Korean People against Neo-liberalism and the FTA by this book. But, we will make sure that the quality of translation in terms not only of contents but also language be guaranteed at the same time. If you want to have more background information on us and the privatization of health care in Korea, you can contact Myoung-Hee Kim (visiting scholar at Harvard University) or Chang-yup Kim (Associate professor at Seoul National University) and I am sure that they would be happy to assist you. I am looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much. In Solidarity, Young-Jun Choi, M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Social and Preventive Medicine College of Medicine, Hallym University P.S. Two of other editors and our comrade at the publishing company May Day are copied here.