De-regulation is Good. Will California Finally Kill This Myth?
There are many reasons to watch the current move in California to enact universal health care. The State's Assembly passed a bill that would create a California system very similar to the one now in place in Massachussetts. While California cannot claim firstness, it does have the claim on bigness and that really matters. Measured as a national economy,California is in the world's top ten. And the political timing is going to make health care into a campaign issue whether the Republicans like it or not. The California Aseembly will be debating this issue as the primary season rolls along in January and February, 2008. The Republicans in the California State Assembly each voted against this bill even though the state's Republican governor is in favor of the proposed law.
There are humane and ethical reasons why this bill is important. Here on HuffPo the head of the California state employees union put the case elegantly and clearly.
"...California took a giant step towards assisting the growing number of hard working, tax paying, middle class families whose only health care plan is a prayer that they don't get sick; whose only doctor is an emergency room; and whose only realistic chance to life free of both increasing health care costs and being an illness away from financial disaster is the plan that passed the California State Assembly..."
Long-term, this move to institute health care in the nation's largest and wealthiest state is crucial because it signals the painfully slow but important changing of government's role. It shows government can once again be an aid to its citizens, not simply protector of corporate profit. Almost no person making an unbonused salary in America really expects the "market" to come up with an equitable solution to healthcare for the unemployed, the low paid or the previously ill. The State of Oregon where I now live allows health insurance companies here to deny coverage to anybody who has recently been treated for depression. That in itself is depressing. But that's the market for you.
It's amazing to look back and remember a time when even Republican politicians could favor a new law that attempted to help the helpless, to protect those without CEO status. Richard Nixon signed into law The Endangered Species Act in 1973. Willingly.
Can you imagine any Republican now in the White House, or trying to get into the White House, who would do such a thing? It was Ronald Reagan's handlers who put abroad in the land the the bumper sticker "wisdom" that government regs are bad for business, for you, me, the American Way and the gate post. De-regulation became one of the pernicious conquering myths of Reaganomics. Guess what, without regulation some things that should happen, won't happen. Government runs on taxes, not donations. If you look at many of the crucial social changes in America in the past forty years, from civil rights to recycling, you will see that many levels of regulation and mandatory requirements (oh how the Bushies hate "mandatory") have been needed to move the necessary change forward. It always helps when many Americans come to understand the dangers of second-hand tobacco smoke or drunk driving or throwing away the beer bottle, but it's goverment mandates that can make behavior changes more prevalent. How many wheelchair ramps would there be in America without legislation? Want to wait for the market to solve problems like that? Where are all the corporate solutions to mass transit?
The California health care move is one Washington D.C. Republicans cannot stop. It remains to be seen if the national party's move against California's anti-smog regulations will make it through the courts. I blogged about that battle earlier.
The health care law will be descried by some pro-business lobbyists as the end of the free enterprise system, detrimental to business, yadda, yadda... but guess what? It'll save Californians and California businesses millions in lost work-time, unnecessary emergency health costs, etc. etc. Large corporations aren't going to move out of California. Google, Cisco and Sony Pictures are not going to re-locate to Kansas or South Carolina. Their CEOs and their most prized employees wouldn't go along. California health care will be signed into law by a Republican. But then Earl Warren, so hated by conservatives of another era, was also a Republican governor in California before he was Chief Justice. Fortunately not every pol wears a party label like it was a brain clamp. Universal health care for citizens, think of it as an Endangered Species Act for Homo Sapiens.
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If the current trend continues, will there
be like little armed 'health service' shock
troops bashing in your door if you have a
third helping of Chee-tos? Will there be a
special paycheck pre-tax to pay for that?
I think the people that administrate the
california state budget smoke a lot of
dope, and drive really nice cars, is what
I think. And, since the healthscare system
is all tied up into that, well, figure out
for yourself who slips em the dope...
"There are many reasons to watch the current move in California to enact universal health care".
Listen very carefully Harry. California is moving to enact MANDATORY HEALTH INSURANCE. You are perpetuating a lie with your reference to "universal health care". Are you confusing people intentionally or do you not know the difference between insurance and health care?
The US hasn't have a 'free market' economy since at least the time of Alexander Hamilton who fought for a Central bank and protectionist tariffs.
If California hadn't had anti-pollution standards for cars that exceeded the national requirements, no cars would have pollution controls at all. California led then, and while there was a lot of griping about it, auto manufacturers had to make most cars comply with the CA standards if they wanted to sell cars at all.
I'd love to see this in health care, too. Universal single-payer health care should be a right for everyone. Isn't that part of the Right to Life? Oh, sorry, that's only before you're born, not afterwards.
As for Medicare - if it's so rotten, how come nobody ever turns it down? I don't know of anyone, anywhere, in the U.S. who has ever decided to say "No, thanks!" to taking Medicare. The same thing applies if you call it socialized medicine - if your health care comes from the government (vets, disability, elderly), then you're taking socialized medicine. How dare someone who TAKES it denigrate it?
When the human body causes or allows the deregulation any of its subsystems, the result is called CANCER.
Here is a contemporary parable that illustrates how the human ego can destroy itself, and by extension, any social system it has the capacity to control:
http://www.ot-mp.net/sitemap_par.html#brain
Why have we lost regulatory control over our own society? You should be able to generalize the principle behind this parable to apply to our larger society.
(Hint~ It's the corporations, stupid!!)
Some problems:
(1) MA is ending up with well over 2 times the number who qualified for free coverage than they planned. They are looking at serious financial problems.
(2) The insurers in MA didn't make it 6 monthes before they were whining for a 10% increase in premiums.
(3) The MA coverage is lousyfor those who have to pay the full cost - $2000 individual and $4000 family deductibles with total out of pockets of $50000/10000 are KILLERS!
(4) MA full price coverage of $800-1000+ for couples over 45 or families at all is horrendous.
(5) Slighly less than 1/2 of the uninssured in MA have enrolled and 80+ pay nothing. The rest can't afford it. A lot of those who had to pay the full cost had to be exempted. (My numbers show about 60% exempted of those above 300$ FPL, Ma is guessing 20% but they have been wrong on all the other numbers.)
(6) CA is not going to cap what insurers can charge in premiums. At last MA had a cap.
(7) CA caps assistance at 400% FPL or around $40000 income for an individual. $40000 does not go far in LA.
Good for you California. Lead the way.
California's economy is huge. Taxes are among the highest in the nation. Even individual cities tax on top of state taxes. How much higher can taxes go? Possibly you should force the movie and tv industries to film in california instead of canada and other places where it is cheaper and the taxes are less. Two choices raise taxes (the democratic way) or lower taxes considerably ( the republican way) Course there is one other way. You could tax the rich. Does any californian need to make over one million dollars a year. Just take all income over a million and provide universal health care
Because deregulation of the energy industry worked so well in California....
The health care legislation is a crucial start. Then Repeal Proposition 13 and I'll believe Californians may finally be ready to restore the proper balance between private and public responsibility. Until we're committed to funding the same quality of public school education for kids in the worst neighborhoods that parents in the best neighborhoods buy their kids by supplementing significant portions of the public school budgets with their own private fundraising, the selfishness pandered to by anti-tax groups will keep us from achieiving the main objectives of any progressive agenda.
Sometimes I think California would be better off if we could set up as an independent country. We have everything we need right here to sustain a nation, from high tech to agriculture, and we pay more taxes to D.C. than we get back. But that's another subject.
Regarding health care, take a google at Hawaii's Prepaid Health Care Act of 1974. They have mandated employer provided health insurance for everyone who works 20 or more hours a week for 4 weeks or more since Jan. 1, 1975. The health insurance lobby quickly made it illegal for the rest of the states to follow suit, naturally. Sort of like the auto manufacturers' lobby made it illegal for California and New York to clean up tail pipe emissions.
Like I said, D.C. is working against our interests, while it maintains corporate welfare.
"I pledge allegiance to the united counties of California.........."
I liked the brain clamp expression. Very nice.
Deregulation is necessary for over-regulation, but non-enforcement or non-regulation is chaos. A large complex society requires coordination, and regulation is necessary and important for an advanced civilization.
It is the sworn duty of the President to uphold the Constitution and protect the lives of every American. Our current healthcare system does not do that. It is high time we have universal single payer healthcare for all Americans in sickness and in health, employed or unemployed. Cutting out the insurance companies will save 30% of costs.
Medicare for all would do it. Get out of Iraq and it is paid for. Which is more important ?
I don't trust an absolutely free market. Mostly because as our relationship with Africa demonstrates, when it comes to social status, there are some things you can't put a price on. (By that I mean that the US would rather have Africa to look down on and pity than treat Africa as an equal partner in trade. I remember I read somewhere that if the US increased our trade to Africa just 5%, that would help cut our foreign aid budget by some astronomical number.)
The other reason I don't trust an absolutely free market is that those who espouse it the most (in the case, conservatives. I don't trust libertarian free market ideas because of the first reason.) don't believe it themselves. If they did, Big Oil would NOT be receiving subsidies, neither would Business Agriculture, etc, etc.
Why does everyone think that government is the answer. Has no one noticed who the president is?
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