Freedom of the press and religion have made Russia a more open country
in the last 15 years.
"It's not as free as it was a few years ago, but it is still much freer
than it was under communism," said Peter Reddaway, a political science
professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Reddaway is the co-author of a book called "The Tragedy of Russia's
Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy."
Reddaway and Judyth Twigg, an associate professor of political science
at Virginia Commonwealth University, told an audience in the Carnegie Library
auditorium last night about the Carnegie Corp. of New York's recent report
on the state of Russia.
Economic reforms, begun in the early 1990s, created severe hardships.
Within three years, the ruble was worthless and many people lost their
life's savings. Farms and factories closed and Russia's version of Social
Security collapsed.
The kind of "economic shock therapy" that the United States prescribed
for Russia a decade ago "was a case of much too much, much too soon. It
brought about the collapse of the old economic institutions," Reddaway
said.
During the economic upheaval, organized crime, ruthless businessmen
and corrupt officials profiteered while many of Russia's 146 million people
suffered.
Since those setbacks, some progress has occurred. Last year, Russia
adopted a balanced budget on schedule and its economy grew by 7 percent.
Russia has great potential because it has well-educated people and oil,
lumber and minerals.
"Unfortunately, they just have not been very successful at political
and economic arrangements," Reddaway said.
In Russia, the health-care debate bears some similarities to problems
in the United States, Twigg said.
Since 1993, Russians have relied on a health-care system that is stretched
to the breaking point, Twigg said.
"Patients have to bribe a nurse or doctor just to get in the door. Sometimes
they have to bribe their way up to the front of the line. If you go to
a hospital, you bring your own food, your own linens and you find your
own medications."
As in the United States, the wealthier you are, the better access you
have to good health care, she added.
In cities like Moscow and regions such as Samara, progress has been
made in combating high infant mortality rates and high premature mortality
rates for adult men.
"If your men are dying off in their most productive years, you can't
effect change or power the economy or the military," Twigg said.
Alcoholism, long a problem in Russia, is manifest in a rise in binge
drinking, which has resulted in homicides, suicides, fatal auto accidents
and industrial accidents.
Two of the biggest problems in Russia's health care system, Twigg said,
are too much specialization among doctors and far too many hospitalizations.
"In 1997, they tried to move way from specialization and toward family
practice and more outpatient services and surgeries. Doesn't all this sound
familiar?"
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