The River

Monday, July 13, 2009


Bought and paid for

by Jhoffa, commenting ont the Raw Story post "Video: Insurance lobby's secret plan to attack 'Sicko' and Michael Moore"

The smoking gun comes in at 3:37 in the second video.. He describes industry efforts on Capitol Hill to threaten Democrats (The same tactics could be used on anyone, really) with opposition come election time, even to the point of funding a contender, if they don't do as they're told.

Healthcare has grown completely out of proportion with any index you care to compare it to. GDP, inflation, income, you name it.. When you hear democrats or Republicans talking about more subsidies for healthcare, these are the guys who are getting that money. They offer nothing in return.

There was also an interesting expose recently (In The Atlantic, I believe) about the health care monopolies and doctors who open their own imaging centers, surgeries and other businesses and then refer patients to them needlessly.. They claim it is for legal protection, but it is quite obviously for the purpose of double, triple and more billing.

Drugs are another monopoly which is protected to the hilt, while the DOJ putzes around with such "anti-trust" nonsense like bids to provide IPhone service. Anything relating to the REAL monopolies in healthcare and Insurance is completely ignored.

Bad as it is, what you're seeing here is merely a symptom of an over arching problem - Corporate America has simply bought our system of government, lock, stock and barrel. They own both parties. Their money and influence virtually guarantees that nothing changes at the top, regardless of who you vote for.

This is why both parties, and the President himself, support a form of Mitt Romney Care. Basically, it forces 40+ million new "customers" into the clutches of the Healthcare/Insurance lobby. Since insurance is all about spreading risk (In a nutshell: It's a good idea to insure 4 or 5 librarians for every sky diver) the lobby is TERRIFIED that changing demographics and their own boundless greed will leave them holding the bag on an ever aging population, and the young and poor won't be there to help them pay for it.

Their answer is to force them into the fold and force them to bear the cost of insuring retiring boomers.

To anyone who responds that the answer to this problem is a "public option" to re-introduce market forces to the industry(s). The reply is: Perhaps that will help. But the outcome is far from certain!

What you don't want, and what the lobby will shoot for in a Hail Mary situation, is a "public option" that is so gamed and manipulated as to actually DRIVE PATRONS INTO PRIVATE INSURANCE, and actually work FOR THEM.. As opposed to against them and their profits.

Please note that even President Obama slipped up and admitted that, at the current rate, there will be money for (so called) entitlements, but nothing else.

In reality, there is PLENTY OF MONEY.. The "Nothing else" you hear them refer to is the American empire and soft colonialism. The cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have alleviated this problem significantly.. But they don't want that. They want to make you pay these costs instead, and dump the surplus into the general fund to be spent on more empire.

There's no problem here that can't be solved. No wild equation that is impossible to work through. Both of our political parties would simply prefer to spend money hand over fist on their favored monopolies and the Empire than spend it on us.

They are bought and paid for. That is all there is to it.

Comments:
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