I don't buy any of this crap about Obama has a credibility problem because he promised folks they could keep their insurance. Obama is not in charge of predatory providers of substandard policies that would rather cancel than amend. Folks, especially them's want to complain about making anyone buy insurance, ought to understand not making folks keep doing a business they can't afford.
Anyway, the point is that's not the point. Sure, maybe Obama said you could keep your insurance if you want. Maybe he was thinking you'd be getting a better deal on the exchanges and wouldn't want to keep it. No matter. Remember when Obama first said we'd all have the health care that Congress has? That's the promise he should keep. Why's the news hew to the most ridiculous story of people losing policies held by scam insurance companies designed to collect premiums and deny coverage, and why's nobody talking about the promise that could actually lower rates?
That's Obama's credibility problem. We expect it of Faux Noise, but even NPR is setting this false standard using utter tripe. There are excruciating analyses of non-comparable plans and rates, about how many young must be sheared to clothe the old, promises and problems with the websites, low enrollments, concerns over privacy, even whether Congress' plan should be cancelled and members forced to buy through the exchanges.
What nonsense. If all these grindstones are meant to be hung around Obama's neck, he will leave offfice bent down low. He'd be better off sticking to his original promise and showing opponents some awesome Ballmacare. Why shouldn't Americans have the same care as Congress? Do employees usually have better coverage than their bosses? Who's paying? Something's wrong and we're missing a huge opportunity for savings: any single payer plan.
Nobody has to sign up. No expensive registration website is necessary. Your social security number is your account number - from before you were born. The group is already there, everybody just automatically joins to become the biggest group in the country: Citizens of the United States. That's bargaining power. We could be proud of it. Single payer systems reduce costs by at least 50%. That makes it a lot easier to afford, if you really want affordable care. Heh.
Ask the NSA. I'm sure this is possible. Folks have tax statements. We know who's who and where folks are, generally. There's got to be way to set rates the same as on the web, but maybe way better. Maybe there's one basic public plan everyone gets free and a number of supplemental private or public elective options. We could close a few corporate subsidies and pare something off of defense and domestic spying. Local levies or state taxes could contribute. The point is that if we did what Obama originally promised we'd all be looking at rates of half and less of what will be possible today.
Why wouldn't we try that? All other industrialized nations try some version of this and all enjoy better coverage at better rates and generally equal or better outcomes. We subject our other jobs to free trade agreements that lower costs to consumers. Why is health care exempt? Anywhere you look, except places like Somalia, there are better, more efficient and affordable health care systems. Are Americans suckers, or is government simply choosing to leave citizens vulnerable?
It's a matter of public health, dude. Give Republicans what they want. Abandon the problems of Obamacare and dodge the indignity of Noballmacare by showing them some real Ballmacare - of, by and for the People. Why shouldn't health care be a public utility? We regulate power, water, sewer, garbage, etc. Why not health care? It might not cost as much as we think after accounting for avoiding the costs of uncompensated care, the marginal costs of deferred care, bankruptcies related to health incidents and adding the potential savings of preventative care - for which our system has little priority or incentive.
Make it an executive order, a gerontologic and demographic national emergency, a matter of national security or law and order - there seems to be plenty of money for that. Who cares? Containing health care costs could be our single most effective means of reducing long-term drag on the economy. Providing basic health care is the first step toward a social framework that can actually support the innovative economy we pretend to believe in. Show us some Ballmacare and leave the presidency with your head held high.
Comments by Readers
Bill Black
Nov 14, 2013The Number One Reason universal health care is needed is that’s the way disease works. Tip, I thank You for the above submission.
Dick Conoboy
Nov 15, 2013Tip,
Of course, you know that Obama will never do this for reasons that are obvious to those who recognize that this health insurance (premium) giveaway was just that, a giveaway to the insurance companies. These voracious corporations will suck billions and billions from those who can least afford it all the while crying “Stop, thief!”. Arguments over rollouts, copays, annual limits, coverage of abortions, etc. are much like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Both democrats and republicans are in hock to corporate America and any move to change the health insurance system would be biting the hand that feeds them.
I wrote about most of this in a column here earlier this year. http://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/medical-bills-can-be-much-lower?search=&category;=&author=22
I love watching the republicans scream bloody murder about Obamacare. What a great act for the public theater for they know full well that their corporate supporters are again giggling all the way to the bank. Meanwhile the low information republican voters think that their party has their back. Fight that lousy socialist Obama and his health care program. Cagey little wabbits those republicans. Please, please, please don’t throw us in the briar patch.
Similarly, I enjoy listening to the so-called liberal talk show hosts twisting their panties and boxer shorts in a wad trying to explain to the liberal “base” that dog poop is chocolate custard. These pundits know better but must cave to their corporate sponsors lest they alienate the audience (read consumers). Why else would many of these “liberals” serve as shills for companies selling gold as a hedge to the next financial collapse? Mercy, me!
Jack Petree
Nov 15, 2013The important promise that was broken was that Obamacare was going to be Universal Health Care… I think UHC is a chimera but that is beside the point, the fact is he never even tried for universal health care and that is, rightfully, being held against him… if you’re going to go for socialism, go for it… a quasi socialism satisfies neither those who prefer a free market nor those who want government to control our lives. As to the poor it seems that O’Care amounts to, “Here, now you can be insured. Oh, wait, you can pay the $10,000 deductible can’t you?”
Dick Conoboy
Nov 16, 2013Jack,
The broken promise was that Obama presented himself as a man of the PEOPLE, as in, “We The People” when in fact he was a corporatist shill from the outset, a Rosemary’s Baby of the Chicago Machine. He fooled me into supporting him the first time around but it did not take me long to realize that I had been had…but you only get to do that to me once. I am not into political self-abuse.
You don’t have to go far on either side of the aisle to find those who want to control our lives with bailouts (your money), tax subsidies for the rich and for the corporations (your money), Obamacare and its cost (your money), perpetual war (your money), homeland security (your money), NDAA (your money and your freedom), the Patriot Act (your money and your freedom), the militarization of our police forces (your money and your freedom), vaginal ultrasounds (your freedom and your body), abortion control (your freedom and your body), corporate control of education (your money and your freedom), et cetera, et cetera, et cetera… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JHH6iwgIek
g.h.kirsch
Nov 17, 2013“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
Thomas Jefferson
Tip Johnson
Nov 17, 2013Thanks once again, Jack. You are so inspiring!
You say, “…quasi socialism satisfies neither those who prefer a free market nor those who want government to control our lives.” That’s a false dichotomy. No one has ever said they want government to control their life. Control will exist with or without government. It’s just about where the locus of control should reside. In America, that is supposedly of, by and for the People. So when arguing against government in favor of a free market, it depends on whether you are talking about goods and services the private sector can be trusted to reliably supply. These days there are further concerns that the supply be sustainable - at least for some. What about government providing basic services?
Take sewage. Government does “control our lives” a bit there, I mean you aren’t ‘free’ to poop on your neighbor’s porch or pipe your waste just any ol’ where. Government provides a service that protects public health. Same with water. I know you have opposed measures to prevent pollution, but by and large most people would rather drink pure water. Roads, police and fire protection, public health, these are all services government provides. Yes there is control, but would you do without police? That’s ultimate control. They can arrest you. But the private sector simply can’t be relied upon to maintain civil order, put out fires, pick up garbage, control pollution, etc. You can call it control, but there are lots of things people need that the free market can’t or won’t reliably do. Protecting the commons and defending the common good are chief among these.
The truth is that no one sits around dreaming up regulations. They emerge in response to problems. Like zoning emerging in response to typhoid epidemics caused by unsanitary slaughterhouses. Like grading and filling regs responding to developers bulldozing creeks and wetlands. Like building regs addressing fire hazards and the like. Ironically, it’s your ‘free market’ idols who sit around dreaming up free trade agreements that undermine independent producers in favor of corporate control. So free vs control isn’t really a cut and dry paradigm. For some, it’s just about getting paid.
What about wanting a free market AND some reliable basic services the private sector hasn’t done a great job providing? I’d say health care is definitely a candidate for consideration.
For one, as Bill Black points out, that’s the way disease works. In a world of potential pandemics, you want some guaranteed level of service provision. Everyone wants the freedom to choose until there’s an outbreak. Then they want the vaccine, even if it’s too late. Second, why should we pay twice as much for the same care as any other developed country? Third, why would we stand idly by and watch an entire industry parasitically drain our economy while providing substandard outcomes? Hmmm, I guess we do that with the financial industry, too. You defending them, too? That’s my point.
Don’t argue for freedom when you are really arguing for continued fleecing by an external locus of control. Universal health care doesn’t make anyone a socialist. It makes them smart. It brings the locus of control within grasp, within control. That is the difference that makes a difference, Jack. Of, by and for the People.
Taking control is very different from being controlled. That, Jack, is where it seems you may be confused.
g.h.kirsch
Nov 21, 2013http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/11/20/time-to-change-course-on-obamacare/