Live or Die, The Free Market Will Decide

Freedom of enterprise was from the beginning not altogether a blessing. As the liberty to work or to starve, it spelled toil, insecurity, and fear for the vast majority of the population. If the individual were no longer compelled to prove himself on the market, as a free economic subject, the disappearance of this freedom would be one of the greatest achievements of civilization ~ Herbert Marcuse, a German-Jewish philosopher, political theorist and sociologist. Celebrated as the "Father of the New Left".

Instead of creating yet another monstrous government bureaucracy, what about mandating that health insurance be provided by nonprofits? I mentioned the idea at the end of my 10/19/2009 post. Oddly enough, a couple of bloggers I thought were conservative seemed to think this was a good idea.

This is decidedly not a good idea Conservatives! If you don't understand why, well... maybe you're not as Conservative as you thought you were.

It should be obvious that not for profit health insurance companies would eliminate the profit incentive! Paying health care insurance CEOs tens of millions of dollars ensures you get the cream of the crop (talent wise). So what if people have to die in order for those CEOs to make their millions? Those who die are lazy good-for-nothings (or, if they are children, then their parents are). They don't deserve to live - that is, if the reason they died is because they couldn't afford insurance.

If they died because they had insurance but the insurance cartel refused to pay... I don't know what the rational is. I'm going to guess denial. That could never happen, because in the world of the "free market" contracts must be honored. If you signed a contract agreeing to arbitration when you're gang raped? The contract must be honored. Why involve the authorities? What the hell do we even need "authorities" for? Privatize the police. Those who have contracts with the private police companies will get protection. Those who do not pay (for whatever reason) have only themselves to blame. The free market provides for those who provide for themselves.

If an insurance company does deny coverage? The contract will address this type of situation. It must be because the "sick" individual is trying to cheat the insurance company. The scammer failed to disclose that he had a "pre-existing condition". Or the type of treatment the sickey is seeking is "experimental". The insurance cartel death panel "profit protection" panel will set you straight on that. "Experimental" treatments are not covered. Cheaters with pre-existing conditions are not covered.

If you're a right-wing Christian Conservative you should acknowledge the fact that a pre-existing condition is a sign from God that you don't deserve medical care. If God favors you he'll provide a sign by making damn sure you are not cursed with one, or provide you with enough money to pay for treatment out of your own pocket. Prosperity theology "implies both that people who are favored by God will be materially successful, and also that materially successful people are successful because God favored them".

Does this not dovetail nicely with the idea that the Bible can be used to justify homophobia? It can be used to justify greed as well. Certainly this is proof that Jesus believes in the free market. If you're a sickey whose treatment has been denied, or whose insurance policy has cancelled - or worse yet, if you can't afford to purchase insurance - you must acknowledge that the free market has spoken. You must acknowledge that the free market has decided that you should die. Sacrificed for the profit of others - those who have been blessed by God.

Free markets equal free people, after all. People who are free to die, that is. Those who live by the market must also die by the market. That's the way Jesus would want it.

.........................

I don't believe that converting the current insurance cartels into non-profits is within the realm of possibility. I support opening Medicare to whoever wishes to buy into it. And providing subsidies to those who can't afford the to pay the Medicare rates by increasing the premiums on those who can afford to buy in by a nominal amount, and raising taxes on individuals making more than $250,000. Such a plan could easily be deficit neutral. And it could be passed with 51 votes through budget reconciliation.

If that makes me a socialist, then so be it. I find the Republican plan, "Don't get sick, but if you do - die quickly", morally reprehensible. As someone who considers himself a progressive Christian, I don't see how conservatism and Christianity are compatible.

SWTD #26

The Republican Plan To Boost Health Insurance Profits

Business is looking at the Democrats and Republicans and saying, how can we make them one party? ... How can we create that? Well, we pay off everybody... What we're seeing in the United States is ... a takeover of the federal government by business ~ Thom Hartmann, on his radio program (10/19/2009).

The Democratic plan is to mandate coverage while putting in place zero regulations ensuring prices don't spiral out of control. Millions of new customers and hundreds of millions in subsidies sounded good to the health insurance cartels, and for a while it looked like they were on board. Then the Finance Committee scaled back the penalities for not buying and the health insurers got scared. Sure, their profits would still soar under the Baucus plan, but was this the MOST they could get?

They are already doing quite well gouging the American public on their own. Plus, if they can't deny coverage for pre-existing conditions anymore what will stop people from going without coverage, paying the fine, signing up for coverage when they needed it, and then dropping it when they no longer did? That is the argument I've heard. It may work for a lot of medical issues, although I doubt someone without insurance can wait for the paperwork to be processed if he has a "pre-existing" broken leg. It is a flaw nonetheless.

Clearly a threat was in order. So a report was commissioned a report to warn the Democrats by how much they'd jack up rates if they didn't get what they wanted. Which I'd assume would be the best aspects of the Democratic plan - which is all good except for the flaw I already mentioned, plus the best aspects of the Republican plan.

What is the Republican plan to raise the health insurance cartel's profits you may ask? Do they even have one? Business as usual is the answer you may have already guessed, but that is not all there is to it. There are two other methods I hear mentioned frequently that could boost profits. Not as much as if coverage were mandated, but mandates aren't consistent with the Republican Party's "individualist" image. Plus they certainly can't - even if their goal of boosting the health insurer's profits is the same - cooperate with Democrats.

Buying health insurance across state lines will increase competition and drive down prices. Or, more accurately, that's how they're selling deregulation this time around. Contrary to the Republican claim that deregulation will lead to lower prices and better service as companies compete to win our business, all it really does is allow participants to "come to an understanding" regarding a minimum amount of gouging. With deregulation also comes consolidation, which makes this all the easier.

This is known as a "race to the bottom", meaning that whichever state regulates the health insurers the LEAST will become their new base of operations. Which is why all the credit card companies are located in Deleware. And, don't forget that it was the deregulation of the banks that precipitated the sub prime mortgage crisis that crashed our economy. Do the Republicans really want to go down this road again? I don't know. But talking about it can't hurt. It gives the impression that they have good ideas - the Democrats just aren't listening.

The second "cost lowering" talking point Republicans continually push is tort reform, or limiting settlement in personal injury cases (this includes medical malpractice). According to trial lawyers tort reform is "a movement to tilt the playing field in the courts towards the defense so that big companies are more insulated from lawsuits by individual consumers". It makes sense that Republicans would want to protect their (real) constituents - corporations and the wealthy - by limiting the little guy's ability to sue. Call the lawsuits "frivolous" and mention the woman who sued McDonald's because she spilled hot coffee in her lap and you've got a sound argument.

Except that personal injury lawsuits only make up a small percentage of cases filed in a given year - 10 percent or less, according to Stephanie Mencimer, author of "Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the Republican Party and its Corporate Allies are Taking Away Your Right to Sue".

Medical bills, insurance companies who refuse to pay, living the rest of your life as a disabled person - these things cost a LOT of money. Not going for as large a dollar amount as you can get really wouldn't be wise, especially since many of these settlements are later reduced. These cases should be decided on an individual basis - juries shouldn't be straight-jacketed by arbitrary caps.

The 2009 CBO analysis reports that, even if "stringent" tort reform were adopted, total national health care spending would be reduced by a mere 0.5 percent.

In my opinion the potential harm that could come from limiting an individual's right to seek legal redress is not worth the savings. There are much more effective ways of saving money, such as allowing anyone to buy into Medicare or mandating that private health insurance companies operate on a not-for-profit basis (as they do in Switzerland).

SWTD #24

Universal Coverage A Hardship for Health Insurers?

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed ~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement.

If you didn't watch the coverage on MSNBC Wednesday night after the President's speech (9/9/2009) you probably missed what I think was the most important clarification of the evening. David Axelrod, appearing post-speech on the Rachel Maddow Show explained how there could be a mandate for everyone to buy insurance, yet what we would end up with would NOT be universal coverage. According to Axelrod, if you can't afford the not-for-profit health insurance, you will be granted a "hardship exemption". Which means, I suppose, that people who can't afford the reduced rate because they are too poor should be grateful they will be allowed to continue to not have access to health care.

Of course Republicans will approve, as we can not have more lazy lowlifes "suckling from the teat of big government". This explains why they're so upset about Obama's death panels - death panels fall under the purview of the for profit health insurers (Death panels are only bad when they are run by the government I guess). The Supreme Court has ruled that money is free speech - and it is the insurance companies who have spoken loudest. They are the ones who would suffer a "hardship" if the health insurance reform legislation included a true public-option (one which anyone could buy into). Think of the billions in lost profits!

I am not joking. These contract breaking death-panel running parasites actually DO have the temerity to argue that an overhead of up to 40 percent is reasonable while Medicare can do the same job for under 4%.

In an 8/25/2005 article from US News & World Report titled "Why Health Insurers Make Lousy Villains", author Rick Newman declares that, "blaming insurance firms for runaway healthcare costs is a weak argument, because the insurance industry isn't all that profitable to start with". As proof to back up this misleading claim that the health insurance racket "isn't all that profitable", Mr. Newman correctly points out that "the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year".

How can the profit margin stat be both correct AND misleading, you might ask? Mr. Newman reveals the fatal flaw in his own logic when he states that, "profit margins basically reflect the percentage of revenue left over after paying salaries, expenses, taxes and lots of other things. So it's possible for firms to pay their executives a lot and still have a low profit margin". They don't pay their executives "a lot", they pay their executives WAY TO DAMN MUCH. Even though he himself points out how looking at profit margins can be misleading, this fact goes completely unaddressed in Mr. Newman's article. Not even a quick dismissal.

I'm guessing he believes exorbitant Health Insurer CEO compensation to be justified, beyond reproach, and thus not even worth discussing (his article goes on to point a finger at the pharmaceutical industry, which, overall has higher profit margins). I agree that Big Pharma is another leaches draining the American health consumer, but that is a topic for a future blog post.

David O. Friedrichs of the Department of Sociology/Criminal Justice, University of Scranton PA asserts "some immense forms of social harm are not formally classified as crime" in a paper titled Exorbitant CEO compensation: just reward or grand theft? The article concludes that "such compensation is neither warranted nor necessary" and may very well jeopardize the "economy which produces their wealth in the first place".

The author's determination - which I happen to strongly agree with...

David O. Friedrichs: Walking into a bank with a gun and demanding money from a teller is one way to steal money. Walking into a corporate boardroom and securing from that board's compensation committee, made up of cronies, consultants, and even relatives, compensation of millions - sometimes tens of millions or hundreds of millions - is another way to steal money. ...exorbitant CEO compensation is, in a very real sense, a form of crime.

However, excessive CEO compensation is not the only way to dispose of dollars that would otherwise be profit. Former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, Wendell Potter, knows all to well how policyholder money can be squandered on corporate jets, gold-plated silverware, country club memberships, security services and other "gilded excess".

Unlike Medicare, private insurance plan also have high administrative costs - which include sales, marketing, and underwriting expenses. Given these facts, can anyone explain why town hall protesters are falling for this "socialism" baloney? Government already provides public education, police and fire protection, not to mention health insurance for people over 65 (which the private health insurers love, by the way, since those individuals are the most costly to insure).

The solution, while it may be a "hardship" for the private health insurers, is a no-brainer. Expand Medicare to enable anyone to buy into it. Liberal talk show host Thom Hartman, in his article "Medicare Part E: Everybody", explains that if we used the rate "set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it ...Medicare Part E would be revenue neutral".

Revenue neutral means we wouldn't be adding to the national deficit, which is the primary Republican oppositional talking point. Or we can continue allowing health insurance execs to continue stealing billions because it would apparently be better than allowing lazy poor people to avoid dying.

Further Reading
[1] The Private Health Industry's Time is Up by Bernie Sanders, Christian Science Monitor 5/16/2009.
[2] The Health Care Racket by Paul Krugman, The New York Times 2/16/2007.

SWTD #21