Wrapped Up Just In Time for Xmas,...The '09 Health Care Train Wreck!
The "Pre-existing Condition" Con Job from Health Insurance companies is coming to an end. It's important to remember that we could have gotten so much more. And it's even more important to remember who thwarted it and to keep fighting after the ink is dry! by Russell G. Davis
(centrist)
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Well, it seems like the dust has settled, the pigs have gorged themselves on our tax dollars once again and a proposal bloated on Insurance Company handouts and anemic on real Health Reform will pass the Senate this week. The talking heads on TV and their masters in office will predictably be promoting this as either the fulfillment of a campaign promise if they are centrist or have a D behind their name or (more farcically) decrying it as a "government takeover" of the Health Care industry if they have an R behind their name. The President will probably make a few token remarks while signing the bill about how it's not perfect but he really did keep his promises and let's be glad about this new law.
I predict that lost or nonexistent in the media noise will be any honest look at how this happened.
We've gone from a situation were the public, having been long victimized and exploited by a Monopolies or Oligopolies in Health Care coverage sent representatives to Washington with a clear mandate to CHANGE and we wound up with a bill that doesn't even have the watered down "public option", but does have billions of subsidies allocated to the very same Health Insurance companies that have been a huge part of the problem.
In mid June, before the recess and shameful Astroturf town hall spectacles, Obama had a 45% Approval and 40% Disapproval rating on this issue according to Pollster.com. Right about that time, the "Death Panel" hysteria, a piece of blatantly false politically motivated demagoguery, started going strong. Hysteria on the issue of "Socialized Medicine" has been present in this country since the Cold War. And what was being considered was not even Socialized Medicine, or Single Payer, or Medicare Expansion or whatever you want to call it (I call it-what the rest of the civilized world has without the ER chaos caused by no preventative care, but that's just me.) Barry, Harry, and Nancy were very clear, that was the first thing that was taken off the table.
And let's not forget that Pharmaceutical lobby was bought off early on in this fight. Remember how Harry and Louise, the Health Insurance shills from the '90s anti-reform efforts, were recycled by the Pharmaceutical Lobby to promote the new Health Care Proposal. And it's not a coincidence that there are loads of subsidies in this bill for Pharmaceutical companies. Not only that, those revolting pieces of Protectionism-21 USC Sections 952,301(aa), and 844 were never being considered for removal. You might become very familiar with those laws if you (exercising your right as a consumer and voting with your dollar) ever buy prescription drugs in Canada or Mexico and try to bring them back over the border.
Getting rid of this Protectionist gift to Pharmaceutical companies was never considered by the Democratic leadership.
Not that compromise across the aisle has done any good. Obama's Approval ratings on this issue as of today are 40% Approval and 53% Disapproval. Well done Betsy McCaughey (leading proponent of the aforementioned blatantly false politically motivated demagoguery)! Inside the Beltway, elitist slander works! You may have had to resign as a director of Cantel Medical Corp., but the damage was done and it enabled the Health Reform efforts to become even more watered down.
So, if it wasn't a "Government Takeover" or "Socialization" of Medicine, what was being considered with the Public Option that Lieberman succeeded in killing? It was a shift in market model. It was a shift away from Monopolies and Oligopolies towards Controlled Monopolistic Competition. And that's what the dupes of Dick Armey's FreedomWorks were defending. They weren't defending anyone from Big Government even though they might have thought that's what they were doing. They were defending Monopolies and Oligopolies from a different kind of Free Market Competition similar to what we have with public shipping.
It's Christmastime, so most of us are familiar with choosing between the USPS (a Government owned corporation), UPS, and FedEx. We're already using that model when it comes to shipping. Why not Health Care? As I was reading the "Loyalty Oath" proposed for the RNC by Jim Bopp, the word "market-based" appears twice. Why is it that when the consumer freely chooses USPS for some packages and UPS for others it is market-based, but when using the same model for Health Care, it is Socialism?
So, finally, we've got a Health Care reform bill at long last. On one hand, we don't have the needed market shift towards Controlled Monopolistic Competition and away from Monopolies and Oligopolies. We still have a need for exactly that, so we'll see. This bill can always be amended, at that is reason enough for hope. We have a requirement that insurance companies spend 80-85% on medical care and not administration, advertising, and CEO salaries. That is a step in the right direction.
We didn't arrive in this mess of private doctor and hospital bureaucracies fighting private health insurance bureaucracies and inflating prices overnight. We're not going to get out of it overnight. And still, for all the politics as usual, despite the need to rid ourelves of these bureaucracies, they remain in place, perfectly situated to continue driving up costs, after all is said and done. That's what makes this effort a complete Train Wreck. But still,step in the right direction is better than nothing.
But I do reject the notion that we couldn't have had a needed sprint in the right direction. And the reason we didn't was Obstructionism by the Republicans, an eagerness to sell out by Blue Dog Democrats, the blatantly false politically motivated demagoguery, and the people who turned out in force to defend heavily subsidized Monopolies and Oligopolies. I'll never forget the sorry spectacles of this year. From the retiree carrying a sign that said "Keep Government OUT of my Medicare" to CNBC's Maria Bartiromo asking a 44 year old Congressman "...if Medicare is so great, why aren't you on it?" to Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouting at the President like a drunk Rocky Horror fan, the Right has really knocked itself out to keep infant mortality statistics exactly where they are, to enable exploitation of the sick by Health Insurance companies, and keep those ER rooms full of people who can't afford any other type of medical treatment.
And to the DC elitists responsible for this watering down (It was something like 10 lobbyist to every member of Congress by one estimate). Bravo. Well done. It was truly a masterpiece. The manipulating of the public with Emotionally Potent Oversimplication was straight out of Walter Lippman's handbook. You have succeeded in a Free Society where tyrants have failed. You've reduced a huge portion of the population to pathetic slaves in love with their shackles!
By the way, I believe Jefferson swore eternal hostility towards that power DC elitists assert over the minds of man. Eternal hostility is the correct response to these unelected tyrants in my opinion!
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Posted By: Ross Williams
Date: 2009-12-30 09:55:16
Russell: I'm dizzy. You took me all over creation in this essay, only to arrive right back at pretty much the same spot, worn out and covered in sweat, and without a clear indication of what you actually think of the subject.
...although it's clear you're passionate about it.
I would like to think you are against the current "watered down" version of health care [sic] reform as a cheap, sleazy co-option of some uber-idealism that would only have been realized in the enaction of some form of idiot socialized medicine, but other things you say lead away from the conclusion.
For instance, you laud the topical consumer choice of choosing a package delivery service that meets a customer's needs between the inept, costly and continually profitless Postal Service, and their successful and efficient competitors of "brown" and FedEx. And then you suggest the "competition" isn't real unless it has an inept, costly and profitless governmental agency to embarrass in the marketplace.
The Constitution does not guarantee health coverage as an obligation of the government -- it may be a 9th/10thAM "right", but there's no written obligation of the government to provide it. The government is obligated to provide postal service. But even at that, there are many, many things the government's own USPS -- that grossly inept, bloated, and byzantine outfit -- will not send from Point A to Point B for its citizens.
And then, of course, is your closing scold which impressively contradicts any potential to believe you're in favor of a government-mandated/-run health care [sic] system:
I believe Jefferson swore eternal hostility towards that power DC elitists assert over the minds of man. Eternal hostility is the correct response to these unelected tyrants
A government-mandated/-run health care [sic] system would be a morass of "unelected tyrants", whose regulatory authority is not readily challengeable, and not subject to standard Constitutional requisites in any event ... which is "power asserted over the minds of man" no matter which way you look at it. And they are deserving of eternal hostility in your opinion.
Mine too.
So, I am somewhat perplexed regarding the actual point you may have tried to make, here. Perhaps you could summarize it. A paragraph ought to suffice.
Posted By: Russell G Davis
Date: 2009-12-30 14:44:59
Hi Ross!
I apologize if I seem to "all over creation" in this one, but this has been a large debate that has been going on for most of the year. Not only large, but very fast changing. And there are easily half a dozen seperate points in this Health Care debate each deserving it's own essay. As soon as one point was debunked another would pop up. Plenty was already being said on these subjects by others. I decided I'd wait to see what was finally settled on until I invested in a whole essay and commented on something that might be a mute point next week. There was a lot to touch on.
One of these was the source of the constantly inflating costs -"private doctor and hospital bureaucracies fighting private health insurance bureaucracies". These are well entrenched lawyers, clerks, and collectors each fighting one another so they're own bottom line is bigger. They deserve they're own essay. I don't differentiate between a public bureaucracy and a private one. An unelected tyrant is an unelected tyrant.Â
It is such a reprehensible form of absolute power that it should be expanded very cautiously and only as the last resort. And as much as I loath the idea of handing these tyrants tax money, I have to applaud putting an end to the "Pre-existing condition" con job.I think that will benefit everyone. Opposition to tyrants usually does.
I'm not suggesting that competition isn't real if it's not competing with the goverment. I'm merely stating that we are already using that model of market competition and no one is crying "Socialist" or "government takeover" when they mail a package.
We also have market models where government has only a regulatroy role (if that). Oligopolies where 3 or 4 companies control 95% of the market.And Monopolies that by they're very definition have no competition and, in the case of Health Insurance,employ a tyranical bureaucracy to insure they pay out as little as possible. And, of course, Perfect Competition as defined by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations which I'm all for when it is truly appropriate.
My point is that the current model has failed. And it has failed to the extent that we have to tolerate 3rd world infant mortality statistics. We're already using a model that is more effecient because brown and FedEx have to compete with the USPS. That's what the "Public Option" was. And no one is calling the model socialism when we use it for shipping.
And I usually have a positive experience when I go to the Post Office. There are occasions where the service is rotten, but I also have that in the private sector. I'm glad they are there when I need to mail a letter.
And the Constitution doesn't say a lot of things. That's why they made it open to ammend and granted Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Thanks for your comments, Ross. I was starting to wonder if anyone was still talking to me as I acknowledge that I probably was going to strike some nerves with this one.
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