The Big Three: Help Wanted There Only

I have been waiting for a great summary like this, a clear and complete explanation of what real reform would have entailed from the health industry perspective, from someone whose career is in that industry, from the horses mouth as it were.

I hate to be blunt, but as this writer describes, much of the health care industry has become just like more pigs at the public and the private trough.

The situation in the health industry is very similar to that of two other bloated industries: the military industry and the financial industry. The stark fact is that the health, the military, and the financial industries (Wall Street / the huge banks) are essentially the only three large scale industries left in the United States not subject to the devastating impact of severe recession and depression forces. Most and probably all other large industries are left to implode and rot from more or less permanent severe recession and depression. While employment in the "Big Three" will stay roughly the same or even go up a little, employment in the far larger number of large, depression-impacted industries has gone down, will continue to go down, and will not be coming back under the kind of total right wing control of the economy that you have in the US.

Notice that it is, ironically given all the free market propaganda, taxpayer money and the Government that propels those Big Three industries and protects them from the ravages of economic depression. It is not market forces. There is a massive, unprecedented distortion and perversion of the market involved in the favoritism shown toward the Big Three. Specifically, tax payers and creditors such as China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia are paying or investing through the teeth to engineer a vast increase in the amount of goods and services that are produced and sold in the US by those three particular large industries. The health deform is to legally force some people who have been trying to avoid this perversion and distortion to join in it.

But this is the essence of what the health care deform is really, secretly all about. It allows the health care industry to join the other two as part of the Big Three that will be protected by the Government (and by extension by the people who fund that Government) from the depression that is indefinitely hitting and gradually imploding most other industries. Or to use the metaphor, it is these three industries that are getting on the lifeboats of the Titanic, so that they can then in effect be rescued by another ship. Meanwhile, everybody else gets no lifeboat, but merely the false comfort of rearranged deck chairs and a macabre entertainment while the ship goes down.

Oh, but you were not entertained by the Tiger Woods story nor by the story about the couple that attended Obama’s shindig uninvited? Too bad, you were supposed to be entertained, so that your mind could be taken off the fact that you are being economically abandoned and drowned by your government.

Since 1980 if not longer the US frequently goes from bad to worse under the cover of “reforms” and “commissions”. "Reforming" something is merely an excuse for the pigs to make sure that more and more feed comes into the trough for more gorging. What an irony, for example, that Medicare could be the keystone of a valid and successful reform, but in actual fact the crazed Democrats are CUTTING certain aspects of Medicare and not increasing eligibility for it at all.

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The above was in response to this article by Phillip Caper at Common Dreams.

Poetic Justice

Well, at least there is the poetic justice that a country that repeatedly invades third world countries eventually turns into one. (I'm a fan of poetic justice.)

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The above very brief commentary was in response to this report at Common Dreams.

Sometimes one phrase sums things up very nicely. And sometimes, even a writer who tends to use more words than most other writers to try to make sure he is understood takes a break!

Voting Republican, Though Unlikely, is by no Means out of the Question

Unity-Progress responded when someone made this disturbing comment to this article:

CV November 30th, 2009 11:00 am
Excuse me DF, but this is good insight as to how things like this work. To simply write it off as theatre leaves you without a clear understanding of the system and it's outcomes.

What you have is 56-57 Senators (with a D after their names) trying to pass a healthcare reform that, for the first time, extends National Health to the General Public, not just Seniors or the Poor.

And you have a minority, less than 40 Senators that want to prevent HCR because it would mean political success to their nemesis. Then there are a few Senators that are using their pivotal position for their own powergame.
Reid has to somehow get 60 votes and still deliver for the majority of Americans.
This is how controversial legislation goes. "Everybody gets something, nobody gets everything, nobody gets nothing".

And nobody gets exactly what they want.

Nothing is set in stone, either. Once this foot-in-the-door bill is installed, deficiencies will show up (as if we couldn't see them already). I'd be amazed if there aren't at least two sets of restructuring of the PO and the Exchanges within 15 years. But those adjustments can't happen if there's no Public element to restructure. And it certainly won't happen if the Republicans regain control.
If this goes down to defeat, it'll be another ten to fifteen years before it comes back around, meanwhile, the Insurance Companies will continue on the trajectory they are on, skyrocketing costs, punitive rules and massive profits.

It's really too bad that Progressives didn't get behind this and put pressure on their CongressCritters, particularly in states where they are saddled with Republicans. The Progressive Voice has been split by this purity fight over an unworkable, possibly unconstitutional bill that was never going anywhere, but unfortunately was adopted by the Liberal Elite as a litmus test of your Progressive cred.

Perfect is not going to make an appearance. Good is slipping away. While the Right and the Corpos speak with one clear, powerful voice to prevent any kind of Public Healthcare plan, the Left ranges from tepid support to outright hostility with plenty of onside sniping.

This same pattern is showing up in the AntiWar issue and so many others. Is it any wonder that the Administration doesn't respond to "the Left"? Which Left should he listen to? The Nadirites that have been against him from before the election? The Libertarians that aren't Liberal at all but they've hoodwinked a lot of Progressives to follow them? The Moderate Left?

Progressives can only influence legislation if they stay engaged. Making a stand for a bill that is not under discussion is an abdication, it's walking away from the table.

And if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.

UNITY-PROGRESS RESPONSE
Well, as for "walking away from the table," I'll strongly consider voting Republican for the first time in my life if:

--This health bill abomination is passed just so that the Democrats can pick up the votes of dumb people. No reasonable health care economist says these laws and taxes will reduce costs and prices by more than a trivial amount, so the purpose of the reform has NOT even slightly been met.

--The Republicans promise to dismantle at least the worst parts of the law AND it is clear to me that they will in fact dismantle.

--There continues to be no non-right wing party to vote for that has unified the non-right and that has basic political marketing attributes.

If all those three conditions apply, I'll be a left winger voting for the Republicans laugh out loud. But I'll be "at the table". That's good, right CV?

Oh, and I hate to break this to you, but the most likely final outcome is that there isn't going to be any public option at all but the bill is going to pass. So your precious "public option," which is already a joke, is going to be non-existant, but you will be a slave to the health insurance executives.

PS. No one should want to be at the table when nutritionally worthless garbage is being served.