The new healthcare bill really has nothing to do with healthcare. It’s a tax bill aimed at saving money for the already rich. The Republicans can lie about it until their teeth fall out and the Democrats can blunder around lost in the dark, but this is the reality; until our congress decides to take the roughly one trillion dollars that the GOP wants to give back to the rich and uses it to pay for healthcare for the poor and middle classes, there will be no functioning healthcare in this country and we will continue to act like a third world slum.
It’s not as if there were no good examples for us to follow out there but in order to do so our lawmakers must forget that they are Democrats or Republicans, must discard the moneymen who have bought their votes and act like honest legislators. Healthcare cannot be part of any business or any profit making system. It must stand-alone with the only consideration being what is best for the patient. As soon as one starts to worry about costs, healthcare doesn’t work.
That does not mean that we should allow all the petty crooks and grifters to steal from the system. That is quite another thing, but it does mean that we must deliver top quality care first and then worry about how to pay for it. It’s more important to care for our sick then it is to build planes. It is a far better use of our tax money.
This blog has talked a lot about how Republican politicians are selling out their own voters to vested interests in just about every field you can think of. Actually it isn’t just the Republicans. There are plenty of Democrats that are just as busy screwing you as any member of the GOP. It’s just that the Republicans are much more blatant about it. So let’s take a look at this. In the first three months of 2017 the Drug industry spent $78 million in lobbying and bribing senators and congressmen. The Insurance industry spent $40 million and the oil, gas and coal industries spent $38 million. That’s just in the first three months of this year. That totals out, for just these three industries, at well over half a trillion bucks in bribes and inducements for just one year. Is it any wonder we’re going broke on drug costs and that we can’t get a functioning healthcare system that isn’t being choked to death by insurance costs or that we’re gagging on carbon emissions?
Drug costs are so high that people are dying because they can’t afford the drugs that will save them. That is simply unacceptable. How did we get to that state? Easy, the thieves we voted into office sold us out. I say; the only way to control drug prices is by government mandate. That is what all the other civilized countries in the world do. In this country it’s the drug and insurance companies who dictate how much drugs cost. How did that happen? How did we let the cost of an essential service get left in the hands of the carnivorous degenerates that run the drug companies? It happened because the drug and insurance companies bought our legislators lock stock and barrel.
Ever hear of Medicare part D? Well back in 2003 congress passed this landmark piece of industry bred legislation. It allowed senior citizens to buy drugs while Medicare subsidized their costs. In case you didn’t get it, that’s a good thing. But in order to get that idea across to all the members of congress that had to vote for it, they had to get all the members of congress who were taking bribes from the drug industry to vote for it as well. So what happened? Part of the bill says that it bars government from negotiating for drug prices. That’s right, government has nothing to say about the cost of drugs. Only the drug companies can dictate that. So basically you, the drug buying public are screwed. Your representatives have sold you out to the drug companies and they did it for that $78 million those drug companies spent on lobbying and bribes in the first quarter of 2017 and every other quarter of every other year since 2003.Our legislators aren’t cheap crooks. They get paid very well to fuck you over.
What can we do about this? Well, first we have to elect some honest legislators. Then we have to motivate those legislators to vote to change the law, to cut out that section that says the government cannot negotiate with drug manufacturers on price. Then we have to get a drug panel in place that goes in and drags the prices down to a number that competes favorably with what the citizens of other countries are paying.
If we manage to get that, the drug and insurance companies will whine that they can’t afford research and development. They will moan that they will go out of business. The part about going broke is pure bullshit because if they were in danger of going broke they wouldn’t sell their drugs to other countries at a fraction of the price they are selling them here. The part about research is also bullshit and the answer to that is; the government must take over all drug research. That will significantly lower the costs of drugs because the drug companies will not have to underwrite the costs and the drug companies will therefore have no patents. All drugs will henceforth be generic and cost like they’re generic. This will significantly cut into the gas budgets for all those yachts we see in marinas around the country but it will mean that even poor people will be able to buy the drugs they need to fight disease. It’s almost un-American, isn’t it?
Finally someone has appeared, who can explain the GOP problems with solving Obamacare without just falling back on my old excuse of greed. Journalist Steven Brill explains very succinctly just how simple the problem really is. The Republicans are basically trying to change a plan that they actually want. He brings it all the way back to Nixon who tried to pass pretty much what turned out to be Obamacare. The Democrats, Brill explains, wanted a single payer system all the time, but the GOP wanted what we have now in the ACA. The big problem with Obamacare is that it is nicknamed after Obama and the Right just can’t stomach that. So maybe if everyone just went back to calling it the Affordable Care Act, which is its actual name, we could stop all this senseless squabbling and get on to fixing what we have.
Donald Trump is so upset about Obamacare that he just wants to repeal it now and worry about getting a new bill later. That just displays the President’s usual lack of insight because even though contracts are in place now for the rest of the year the insurance companies, who hate any kind of risk or uncertainty, would never create new plans in a market with no certainty for the next year, thereby killing the system as the present contracts ran out and throwing millions off healthcare. On top of that you have the fact that after spending the last eight years trying to come up with an acceptable plan and failing miserably, what makes anyone think the GOP can come up with something in only one year? But what does Trump care. He’s rich. He can afford his doctor bills.
In last week’s column, this writer called universal healthcare a right. That statement bred its own little war, led by those who demanded to know where in the constitution is healthcare mentioned as a right?
Nowhere! But it does say we are entitled, as a right, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all of which relate back to not being sick all the time or dying from lack of medical care.
We are going to repeal and replace Obamacare and we’re going to pass a law that provides more and better healthcare for more people for less money. So said Donald Trump on the campaign stump and later as President. Now we see the same liar saying, just repeal and we’ll replace later. Big difference. What brought about this change? Easy, the fact that Trump doesn’t care what’s in any bill, he just wants a bill to sign, any bill at all. So he’ll throw all his voters under the bus if it will get him a photo-op and a chance to hand out pens.
No matter how many, so called or self identified, experts we hear speak on the various healthcare plans we can only come to one conclusion. There is no solution but one and that one scares the living hell out of all the politicians on both sides of the aisle. That solution is single payer, the government paying for all healthcare provided in the country. Its not like there aren’t examples of single payer working all over the world. We are the only one of the top 35 civilized nations that doesn’t have universal healthcare. Does that mean that we aren’t civilized? It would seem so.
Just to give you an idea: There are eleven nations that fall into the same economic sphere as we do and all except us have universal healthcare.
Among them, the U.S. ranks 5th in quality of care, while England ranks 1st.
In access to care, the U.S. ranks 9th while England ranks 1st.
In healthcare equity; the availability of care regardless of income, the U.S. ranks 11th while France ranks 1st.
Overall the U.S. ranks last among all 11 countries. England ranks 1st in public healthcare, while Switzerland ranks 1st in private healthcare.
Overall the annual cost of healthcare in the U.S, is $9451 while the average yearly cost of healthcare in the other eleven countries is $3814. We are the leading country in research. It’s just too bad that we don’t know how to deliver it in the form of care
So if single payer works all over the world why won’t our congressional assholes consider it here? Simple. Taxes. No politician ever wants to raise taxes. They will lower taxes even when it is obvious that they are hurting or destroying some part of the national fabric to do it, but they never want to raise them and universal healthcare would mean a tax rise for all. But the reality is that you get nothing for nothing. To get universal healthcare we have to pay for it and none of the current plans or plans for plans even come close to paying for anything, especially when the GOP is trying to slip a trillion dollar tax cut for the already rich into the pie. The fact is that if we are to have a working universal healthcare system that competes with other nations on some kind of level, the rich are going to have to pay for at least a good portion of it.
What’s amazing is how much of the system those who are not rich will be able to carry. Why? Because without the burden of today’s healthcare costs they will be able to pay higher taxes and still come out ahead.
If we can get a single payer system it will mean huge savings on almost every count. The government as the single payer will be able to force drug companies, medical manufacturers and ballooning hospital monopolies to adjust their costs to reality as opposed to the way they are skyrocketing now. This would make the system cheaper and more efficient to run, saving trillions on today’s costs and covering everyone. The naysayers, led by Paul Ryan will still be there. Ryan will never get his hand out of the pockets of the idle rich who support him and his ilk, but the reality is that despite complaints about other countries systems, they all offer equal or better coverage and at less than half the cost of what we are paying now. Isn’t it time to finally get smart and give America a greater health care system…finally!