The logic of the fascist is not hard to follow – just think duplicity and lies. Whether it is American justification for current attacks on the rest of civilization or Germany’s cry in 1939 that it was merely defending itself from Poland, it is always easily disassembled and transparent lies. That’s all we get. The shame is that people so easily buy them. But extreme gullibility appears to be the human condition, and it appears incurable.

In most places, that is. Spain has enjoyed a very good public health care system in the post-war era. Currently it spends less than half per capita than the US and achieves better outcomes – full coverage for all citizens and a longer life expectancy.

The bank-generated housing and debt crisis has hit Spain hard, and of course the fascist response is automatic: Attack the public sector, privatize, privatize, privatize. The Spanish government, to “save money,” wants to take its health care system private. Since statistics easily indicate that public systems are far more economical, efficient and effective than our private system here in the US, money cannot possibly be saved in privatization.

There is only one possible outcome here: Less service, higher cost, poorer outcomes, private profit. Spanish people are up in arms. Imposition of a private system, if the US is an example, is unaffordable. But in true fascist tradition, it will be done by force.
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PS: This is nothing more than Naomi Klein’s aptly-worded “Shock Doctrine:” To create a problem and then step in with predetermined “solutions.”

Liz Fowler was once employed by Wellpoint, a very large private medical insurance concern. She was moved from there to Senator Max Baucus’ office to oversee the writing of the bill euphemistically called the “Affordable Care Act”, and to shepherd that bill through congress. That part done, the insurance companies (AHIP) moved her to the White House to oversee implementation of her bill.

Now that we are all indentured servants of medical insurance companies, her work is done. She is leaving employment of government officials to “return” to employment by private industry, as if she ever really left.

This whole process has been one of the most contemptible and corrupt I have ever witnessed. Only Democrats could have pulled it off. Since they were seen as the overlords of the process, there were no Democrats available to fight the bill. Democrats are the problem.

We are off to “climb” a fourteener today. At our age, that means walk up the trail ever so slowly and tortuously. The walking and uphill does not bother me, but the lack of air does. It’s like wind sprints.

Anyway, at one of those Democratic web sites someone made the inevitable comparison between casualty and health insurance. Yours truly cannot let such intellectual blunders go. No sir.

Your argument fails … in equating health care and casualty insurance. It would be possible to segregate insurance for catastrophic health events for young people. Then comparison might be valid.

But the need for basic health care is pretty much a certainty, so that the insurers need to move out of the way. In that area, they are mere brokers who impose huge overhead on everyone. To save money they deny basic care, impose co-pays and deductibles and out-of-pocket and even refuse to pay many claims. They do this knowing full well that once saddled with large insurance premiums people are reluctant to take on additional costs, and so avoid basic care. So health insurance becomes a roadblock to public health. Indeed, since ACA I’ve seen insurers back away from paying physician office visits in total, not even counting them towards deductibles or out-of-pocket limits.

Also note that most health care costs are for the aged, and that we all travel that road, so that Medicare is not so much insurance as an intergenerational transfer. But also note that before we had Medicare health insurers, knowing the high certainty of claims, refused to cover most seniors. Again the insurance model fails.

Casualty insurance and health care coverage are, in my view, two separate functions that are not comparable.

Entering the mind territory of another, especially a Democrat convinced that wisdom is expressed in doctrine of a bought party, is pointless, but the point needs to be made anyway. Health insurance companies are mere rent seekers who have roped off our health care system for private exploitation at the expense of our greater good.

jacksmith wrote down below concerning ACA

There is no mandate to buy private for-profit health insurance. There is only a nominal tax on income eligible individuals who don’t have health insurance. This is a HUGE! difference. And I suspect that tax may be subject to constitutional challenge as it ripens.

This is a critically important distinction. Because under the commerce clause individuals would have been compelled to support the most costly, dangerous, unethical, morally repugnant, and defective type of health insurance you can have. For-profit health insurance, and the for-profit proxies called private non-profits and co-ops.

Equally impressive in the courts ruling was the majorities willingness to throw out the whole law if the court could not find a way to sever the individual mandate under the commerce clause from the rest of the act. Bravo! Supreme Court.

The penalty for failure to buy private insurance is $94, insignificant. However, one must understand the position of AHIP (American Health Insurance Providers) as they guided this bill from birth to passage. An onerous fine would have raised hackles and may have rallied support against it. The important objective at that time was the principle put in motion: AHIP has the power to force the government to impose fines on us if we do not buy insurance from them. These people are rent seekers, nothing more. The fine is currently a feather. In the end, it will be an anvil. They mean business.

Will the get bigger? It depends on us. If we do as we are told and buy their crappy products, the fine will stay small. But if we don’t, if we are recalcitrants, they will indeed stick it to us. The fine will go up, eventually approaching the cost of a health insurance policy. That’s why it is there.

That is the only reason to have a fine. The fact that it starts out small is akin to the old story about cooking a frog … start it out in lukewarm water. By the time he realizes it is hot enough to cook him, it is too late.

Several Denver hospitals have announced that they will limit or erase medical bills for many of the victims of the recent massacre.

The first thought that crossed my mind is “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?” What about the victims of other accidents, cancer, abuse?

Who the hell do they think they are? God?

The above photo could only happen in this country – a family member is stricken by cancer, health insurance was either not affordable or available prior to diagnosis, and the family having to resort to selling off possessions and begging for charity to pay for treatment. After treatment, successful or not, the hospitals and doctors will come after them and take what they have, saddling them with overwhelming debt and forcing them into bankruptcy.

The concept of “death panels” was invented by some PR agency back in 2009 for the benefit of Tea Party sloganeering. It’s classic PR – short, emotional and memorable. It was mindlessly repeated to demonize the people who actually open up access to health care: government agencies. The real “death panels” are the people who roped off our health care system in order to charge exorbitant fees for admission – health insurance companies. Deep within their bowels are the faceless people who passed judgment on the poor schmuck for whose benefit the above family is having a garage sale.
Continue reading “Death panels” →

I took a brief trip to town today, and passed a sign that said “Garage Sale for cancer” along with the address. They are not raising funds for the Cancer Society. A family member has it, and they are selling off possessions to pay bills. Only in America do you see that! (I’ll grab a photo of the sign tomorrow if it is still there.)

The following are notes I took of an interview with Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Care Plan, from the Counterspin 7/6/12 broadcast:

Massachusetts passed a statewide health care plan in 2006, nicknamed “Romneycare.” It was basically a laboratory trial for what would later become “Obamacare,” or ACA. While widely held to be successful and popular, the numbers are not that impressive. It did cut the uninsured population in the state from 10% to 5% of the population. More about that later.*

Even as Romneycare is in year six now, by a 2:1 margin, members of the Massachusetts State Medical Society still favor single payer over it.
Continue reading “On to Single Payer!” →

The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy. (Alex Carey, Australian writer and social psychologist)

It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century. (same guy)

I won’t belabor this point, as I know it is bad form. But I am the only person I know who predicted that the Final Nine would uphold the individual mandate. (Side note: I also predicted that Obama would extend the Bush tax cuts. He’ll be reelected and will again extend those tax cuts next year.) I also said in some blog somewhere that the only parts of the law in danger were those of actual benefit to us, such as Medicaid expansion.

More predictions, if my reader thinks I have any credibility at all:

1. Medical costs will continue to go up at alarming rates. Those who see this and support ACA will say “Yeah, but they’d be going up faster if we didn’t have this law.” The non-falsifiable hypothesis is very useful in the art of sophistry.
Continue reading “Onward!” →

Q: Democrats are pretty excited about the Supreme Court ruling upholding ACA. Why so?

A: It’s mostly because Obama is president, and he’s a Democrat. It’s victory for their party. They get to chicken dance a little.

Q: That’s it? Party politics?

A: That’s not all of it, of course. But that is most of it. After all, the bill that they got is not at all like what they talked about when Obama was running in 2008.

Q: Isn’t that the hard reality of politics – that you never get all of what you want?

A: They didn’t fight for anything we wanted. This bill is not a result of compromise. I wish that it was.

Q: But there are some good things in it, right? You didn’t lose everything.

A: They have their bullet points. I’ve read them recently.

Q: Such as?

A: Children can stay on parents’ insurance until age 26 now.

Q: Not a good thing?

A: Not a matter of great concern for insurers. One, kids that age are low-risk clients. And two, anyway, they just build the risk into the rate structure. It’s not like they gave something away.

Q: Other bullet points?
Continue reading “An ACA Primer” →

I expressed doubt in the post below that the Final Nine would undo ACA, not due to my genius or psychic abilities, but for the sake of simple clear outlook: The Supreme Court, just like the president, congress and state governments, is under control of private wealth. ACA is the bill that AHIP and PhRMA wanted. The Democrats and some Republicans staged a Kabuki Theater to pass the bill, providing the illusion that something was being debated, and that had not already been decided. SCOTUS was not about to overturn it.

The bill is a huge loss of personal freedom. It is a cost sinkhole. It will not improve health care delivery, reduce costs, or improve the quality of care. It will pad the bottom lines of insurance companies, delivering by force 33 million new customers. For those who cannot afford to pay tribute, the government will do so on their behalf. It is a massive subsidy to our least deserving sector.
Continue reading “Sad day indeed” →