There is an old saying \u201cFool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.\u201d That saying is relevant for the current healthcare debate in which former Vice-President Biden and elite Democrats are touting a reheated version of Obamacare with a public option. It is a case of trying to fool the American public twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adding\nan Obamacare public option will not solve the healthcare problem. Worse yet, it\nmisses an historic opportunity to heal the festering wound of healthcare via a\nsingle-payer system as proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
1. The big picture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nare four major approaches to healthcare: <\/p>\n\n\n\n All are consistent\nwith capitalism. However, Canada unambiguously proves single-payer delivers\nbetter healthcare for ordinary people than private insurance. Moreover, in\nsingle-payer systems, those who want supplementary insurance over and above the\nsingle-payer plan can purchase it from private insurers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite\nthat, elite Democrats are blocking Medicare for All, even stooping to slander\nit as \u201csocialist\u201d in the hope of scaring the general public. That tactic\nreveals the fallen nature of the Democratic Party and it was excoriated by\nPresident Truman in a 1952 speech:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSocialism is a scare word they have\nhurled at every advance the people have made in the last twenty years\u2026\nSocialism is what they called Social Security\u2026 Socialism is what they called\nbank deposit insurance\u2026. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps\nall the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. The facts about\nObamacare<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A\nmajor obstacle to getting beyond Obamacare is people have never been given the full\npicture. The corporate media reports the fight between the Republican and\nDemocratic establishments, making it look as if the debate is fully covered.\nHowever, since Obamacare is a private insurance scheme, that is like saying the\nalphabet runs from A to C. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nmedia fails to report Obamacare\u2019s full downsides and possible alternatives.\nThat is a form of fake news by \u201comission\u201d, which is a cousin to right-wing fake\nnews by \u201cfalsehood\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obamacare\u2019s\nbig lie: no one loses their policy<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nfull picture begins with President Obama\u2019s \u201cbig lie\u201d that no one would lose\ntheir healthcare policy. In fact, about three million families had their\npolicies cancelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obamacare\nwas a financial mugging of the self-employed middle class<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the plus side Obamacare provided health insurance to about nine million poorer households<\/a>. On the downside it cancelled the pre-existing policies of about three million <\/a>self-employed middle-class families and forced them to buy Obamacare policies or face a large fine. Many more were also forced to bite bullet for the same reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new replacement policies were vastly more expensive and inferior. That was because poor people tend to be worse healthcare risks and Obamacare did not fully cover their cost as that would have required politically unpopular tax increases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since\nprivate insurance companies must make a profit, the self-employed middle-class were\nforced to cover the gap. The result was punitive middle-age individual premiums\nof $700 per month ($8,400 per year) with deductibles of $6,000 per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obamacare\nfueled anger and racism in America<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nfinancial mugging of the self-employed middle-class, combined with giving highly\nsubsidized insurance to lower income households, fueled an angry racist\nblowback which contributes to explaining Donald Trump\u2019s electoral victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obamacare\u2019s\nmiddle-class losers were predominantly white. Its winners were disproportionately\nminorities. Consequently, in addition to fueling middle-class anger, Obamacare\nalso fell atop the historic U.S. racial fracture. When combined with the anger\nand racist xenophobia created by globalization and the racist paranoia created\nby the War on Terror, it contributed to the national surge in anger and racism.\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A healthcare-industrial\ncomplex to match the military-industrial complex<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Though\npolitically marketed as a program for the poor, behind the scenes one of the\nbiggest winners were health insurance companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obamacare\nexpanded private insurance to poorer households, channeling millions of new customers\ninto the system at existing high premiums. That is why insurance companies\nsupported it. Next in line came hospitals and medical device companies who\ngained customers via insurance expansion. The windfall gains are visible in soaring\ncompany stock prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\neffect, Obamacare hugely extended the health-industrial complex. That extension\nprovides a classic example of capture theory, whereby business captures\ngovernment and has government serve business\u2019 interest under the guise of the\npublic interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now,\njust as the strongest supporter of the defense budget is the\nmilitary-industrial complex, the healthcare-industrial complex strongly supports\nObamacare and vigorously opposes Medicare for All.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. An Obamacare\npublic option versus Medicare for All<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Though\nan improvement, an Obamacare public option does not fix the problem. It too\nmust be paid for. Private insurance companies will \u201ccherry pick\u201d the insurance\npool so that less healthy high risk households end up on public insurance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\npromises to raise the cost of public coverage, setting-up government to look\nlike a failure. Side-by-side, the inefficiencies and extortions of private insurance\nwill persist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nnet result is Obamacare mark II promises to permanently swindle the country by\ncementing the healthcare-industrial complex\u2019s ability to exploit households and\nforever suckle from government\u2019s breast \u2013 just like the military-industrial\ncomplex. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In\ncontrast, Medicare for All offers an opportunity for redemption. It can heal\nthe wound of healthcare and escape the curse of the healthcare-industrial\ncomplex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If\neconomists are right, healthcare savings will go to workers. Economists say workers\nare paid the value of their economic contribution (their \u201cmarginal product\u201d).\nThat payment comes in the form of wages and health benefits. According to that\nlogic, if private health benefits go down wages will go up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As\nif by fate, the Corona virus provides a timely warning. Private healthcare with\nlarge deductibles and uncertain coverage means individuals will not seek care\nwhen they need it. For the Corona virus and other contagious diseases that can\nbe fatal for both individuals and society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is an old saying \u201cFool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.\u201d That saying is relevant for the current healthcare debate in which former Vice-President Biden and elite Democrats are touting a reheated version of Obamacare with a public option. It is a case of trying to fool the American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-economy","category-us-policy","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1856"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1865,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions\/1865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}