Obama Finally Said It

I have been waiting a long time for a President of the United States to utter the phrases that shall not be spoken. Obama's Tuesday press conference did it, "...why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business?" The pure music of truth, so long forbidden by howling, fang-baring dogs of deception, that it has become impossible for a mere politician to think it, much less speak it.

Private business is no better at running anything than is the government. Despite annals filled with examples confirming otherwise, business continues to harp on the outright lie that they are better at management, creativity and efficiency. Evidence to the contrary: the Manhattan Project; the Apollo Program; Medicare -- which operates on a third of the overhead of private medical insurance. Yes, the private medical insurers should be afraid. Government can kick their ass.

So, also Tuesday, a consortium of medical insurers issue a bawling complaint that they will accept close regulation rather than accede to a government health program which would cause their bread and butter, the grossly inefficient employer based health insurance system, to be jeopardized.

The complaints and pleadings are too little and too late. They held the public and employers hostage and soaked them, soaked them until medical bankruptcy is 62% of all bankruptcies, precisely the thing that insurance should be in business to protect you from. Too little and too late because the public has believed and been betrayed. The greed would not stop even as the prospects of Americans has steadily declined for 30 years. People simply can't pay any more. It is a matter of life and death and death is the only alternative after you fall below the line of ability to pay.

If the alternatives are no health care or rationed care, most Americans are ready to make the only plausible choice. Some health care is better than none. It is beyond any question of socialized medicine. The greed of providers and insurers alike has driven costs so high that the working public simply no longer qualifies as a paying customers. If the question becomes the financial destruction of your family's prospects versus saving your own life, what can be done but to make the most impossible of choices?

Far from sharing the misery of decline, hospitals and insurers are a super capitalism unto themselves. If prices can still increase, there are still enough customers to cover profitability even as more and more people can't participate. Where does this end? The logical conclusion is that only the rich will have medial insurance, and that that insurance will take more and more of their wealth until even they can't pay. Then the system will break completely. For many it has already broken. It is a health care profit bubble that must necessarily break. The problem with letting it break is that people will suffer and die rather than lose some investment, bad enough.

So the socialization of medicine is, like all social interventions, a remedy for the excesses of business. Had they been sober enough to foresee the logical outcome of their quarter on quarter quest for higher profits, they might have seen that they were pricing themselves out of business. They might have seen stiff price controls or even socialized medicine coming. They did not because greed has no foresight, ever. Greed is today, now, and never tomorrow, even though the impulse to greed is to have enough for tomorrow, now.

But words matter. If our President is willing to take on the most sacred cows of business mythology, like that business is superior to government at everything, then the time for change is come. You wondered what the change was? This is it, one word, one sentence at a time. And he can speak in complete sentences.

Comments

[Bombadillo22]

STEVEN HERRINGTON FINALLY SAID IT ..TOO!

This article was a pleasure to read. I caught the implication from an Obama rhetort, have felt the same way all along about the arbitrary, but always oppressive cost of health care, prescription drugs, insurance plans, etc. But you put it into words that cut to the root of the problem, laying bare the impervious greed and utter callousness of medical insurance providers.

The companies that would go out of business though competition from a public option would be those which refused to set reasonable prices on their services and treatments, who treated their customers like pariahs, who turned away patients with pre-existing conditions or that made their patients wait too long for treatment, while searching for technicalities that allowed denial of coverage.

Those patients will turn to a public option that resembles the health care plan of Congress, veterans or seniors on medicare, all run by the government seeking only to recover costs.. Now wouldn't they?

Bombadillo

[expired]

What happened to my post?

[expired]

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[cvwilson]

The right-wing has tried to foist two big lies onto the American public. One, the government can not run anything well. Two, the government does not create wealth. In addition, to the examples cited in the article I would add the Social Security Administration (studies have shown it to be one of the most efficient bureaucracies in the country, public or private) and the Postal Service (do not confuse making money with efficiency, the Postal Service does not make money because it is mandated to provide service everywhere in the country and its fees are controlled. A counter example would be that the financial industry was making money hand over fist prior to last year. Anyone want to argue that they were being well run?). And, remember Conrail where the government took over a half dozen bankrupt railroads in the Northeast and Midwest, restructured and rationalized them, turned them into a profitable company and sold it back to the private sector? Something to think about in relation to GM. As to creating wealth, are not roads, airports, seaports, schools, canals and locks, dams, national parks, etc. wealth. I think the problem here for our right-wing friends is that they believe that unless an asset is securitized and trading on the stock exchange it does not count. Maybe the Reaganite delusion is finally lifting. Amen, alleluia and thanks be to God.

[Labsaregreat]

Agreed! Just don't use tax dollars to support it... Post office has stamps. Have a usage tax. Those who participate should pay those who use private should continue to pay private premiums

[chaifreak]

Uh, that's the point of a "public option".

[Labsaregreat]

At the end of this there will be two health care systems the government run and the private. Those with money will get the private (more than likely the better doctors and facility) and the masses will get something that approximates the VA. Yippie Be careful what you wish for!

[pueblocolorado]

For those with no health insurance like my husband and I were for years, it's a lot. I would love to see across the board access, but God forbid we should all get the health care our congressmen get.

[chaifreak]

I should be so lucky to have access to a VA system. It's better than what I have now.

[Garybot]

Well Stephen - I guess this article really hightlights the differences between liberals and conservatives, because none of it makes any sense to me.

"why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business"? Because they have access to the U.S. Treasure. They will make sure that rates are such that private insurance will have no chance. They will keep the rates down until any public program has been eliminated, then charge whatever they want.

In case you missed it, this type of scenario has been happening to us since last October (well, actually before that, but I use this for argument's sake). We have all witnessed what happens when the U.S. President can dump the constiution, dump the rule of law and keep what is going on from the U. S. citizens who are losing their rights every day.

That is what they will do to health care.

[reader110]

On what basis do you make this assumption?

[andy5555]

Well said I agree

[majii]

If republicans truly believe in the free market, they should be as pleased as punch with a public option because it would increase competition. Right now health-care is optioned. The insurance companies can decide who they will or will not cover based on their rates and co-pays. They currently have the power to rescind your coverage if you become ill due to catastrophic illnesses while you are insured by them. They also have the power to refuse coverage if you have pre-existing conditions. In other words, they have the power over whether you live or die if you become critically ill. Why should they have this type of power over our lives? Some of the top executives made over $20,000,000 last year in salaries and bonuses all while denying coverage and raising rates and co-pay amounts.

[chaifreak]

Your logic is lacking, your grammar is under-par and your references are non-existent.

[uglygnome]

These words must be followed by real action. At some point the president must come forward and say he that a public option is the only option.