Real Health Care Reform & why we didn't get any

this was written nearly two years ago for my Tribune blog.  unfortunately, nothing has changed since that time....
 



Bait and Switch:  What would real "health care reform" look like? 

It's obvious that the present "health care reform" which Republicans are threatening to repeal was no reform at all.  It was a "health insurance" bailout, with further steps to assure that every health care dollar will be channeled through monopoly corporations which control nearly every member of Congress and the President of the United States. 

The one non-negotiable part of "health care reform" which would have actually made a difference was the so-called "public option" - Medicare for all who want it, but especially for those who can't afford private health insurance, or don't want it in any case, for whatever reasons.  (Did you know that many fundamentalist Christians refuse to buy insurance because they consider it "gambling"?  And many more don't want it because it's a bad deal for them, with huge co-payments, no choice of treatments, and because most licensed medical providers are simply extortionists - demanding money or proof of payment up front, or they simply let you die). 

What is wrong with our state and federal governments?  Why can't they simply and directly "reform" our health care system?  We've spent millions of man- and woman-hours, billions, nay, trillions of dollars creating, attacking, "reforming", and opposing the systems we have (this in addition to whatever resources have actually been spent in providing and paying for legitimate health care goods and services).  Yet, the system continues to collapse, public opposition to the existing corporate providers and their  agents in Congress and the White House continues to grow, and taxpayers continue to see half or more of our health care dollars wasted on corporate bail-outs, boondoggles, and outright fraud and malfeasance. 

Where and when will it stop?  Do we have to have a political revolution, a total economic collapse, and a totalitarian police state before we can provide people with a simple and fool-proof  health care system?  Why do we have to be the only country in the world which doesn't have one? 

Let's enumerate some of the many outright lies used to defend the present criminal establishment.

(1)  Most people are happy with the system we have - private "health insurance coverage" in which providers can charge whatever they like, and provide whatever products or services benefit themselves (the providers), while forcing patients to pay for them under penalty of law.  Under this system, being "insured" means that the bills are transferred to a private insurance company which has the means to fight unjust or exhorbitant charges in court, thus "negotiating" rates which are roughly 1/4 what an uninsured patient will be forced to pay - even if it means confiscating her pension funds, home, or other assets. 

(2)  No one likes or wants "government control" or a "government takeover" of our health care system.  No one wants to be protected by consumer protection laws, which state that no one can be forced to pay for unwanted or unneeded goods and services, and that prices must be fair and based on real costs to the providers, plus some reasonable rate of profit, not to exceed a mark-up of, say, 100%.  We all love our doctors and hospitals, and thus are more than happy to simply sign over everything we own and have worked for our entire lives whenever we have an accident or serious illness. 

(3)  We all hate Medicare and Medicaid, and wish to see them abolished as quickly as possible.  The same goes for Veteran's Hospitals, the Indian Health System, National Institutes of Health, municipal and county hospitals, clinics, etc.  All of these are "socialized medicine," and thus to be opposed at any and all costs.

Research and teaching hospitals run by major universities might be OK, since they're part of the "education system", and we all know that "education" is a good thing.  But, if you're like UCLA, you will tear down one of the largest (and best) hospitals in the country, and replace it with one which can only treat one-tenth as many patients - but in a much more healthful and comfortable "environment." 

(4) We must "let the markets work" - by requiring everyone "practicing medicine" to spend $100's of thousands of dollars attending a "medical school" which will only admit a handful of super academic achievers who promise not to do anything which might jeopardize the corporate profits of all the major healthcare providers and suppliers.  Any drugs or procedures which are not "approved" by the AMA, Hospital Associations, state regulatory or licensing agencies, the FDA, the DEA, and hundreds of other regulatory and enforcement agencies are prohibited.  This is what we mean by "letting the market work." 

Above all, there shall be no right to self-medication, or the right to choose among different medical theories or treatment philosophies. 

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Sound extreme, or like a parody?  Read it closely.  That is what we have, today, and what nearly everyone in Congress and other "leadership positions" likes and defends.  And in those few cases where they don't, the party machines bludgeon them into line.  "It's all about compromise," we're told.  But the principles of corporate rule and state-protected monopolies on everything are never compromised.  We are expected just to suffer and obey. 

The Democrats refused to even introduce a bill for Single Payer heathcare - Medicare for All, when they had a filibuster-proof majority in Congress as well as a sitting President.  Actually, there have been many such bills submitted over the years - most recently by John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, and other members of the so-called "progressive caucus" and their Senate counterparts.  But it was the so-called "Blue Dogs", led by our own Max Baucus and some other "conservative" Democrats who effectively vetoed any real health care reform.  After bailing out their insurance and pharmaceutical lobby patrons to the tune of $100's of billions per year, what incentive did they have to do anything for the people who voted for them? 

I have long marveled at the Montana Democratic Party's subservience to people like Baucus, Schwinden, and now Schweitzer and Tester, although the latter two at least pretended to support progressive and populist causes - including Single Payer Health Care - in their campaigns.  I don't believe that Baucus has ever represented himself as being anything but a tool of corporate interests, ranging from the banksters and drug cartels to the nuclear industry, logging, mining, and oil-coal cartels, and of course any and all warmongering and profiteering.  How he can even pretend to be "democratic" is beyond me - except that the Democrat tradition in Montana includes everyone from William Andrews Clark and Marcus Daley to Mike Mansfield, who ended his career on the payroll of Goldman, Sachs - the greatest banksters and clearing house for corporate criminals in recent history.