Wednesday, May 26, 2010

pirates of the care


Well as usual we didn't get much chance to read the health care bill. No wonder, its a mile thick and as illegible as a dour corporate lawyer can make it. As usual there are a few spoons of sugar to help the medicine go down but this medicine isn't going to make anyone well, no sir, this is all about ...you guessed it, money, in the form of corporate profits that is. Yup, in the new health insurance law Congress passed, there is a mandate that all states must have an insurance market exchange operating by January 1, 2014. Further, on or before January 1, 2013, if the Secretary of Health and Human Services determines that a state will not have an exchange ready by January 1, 2014, the Secretary shall establish and operate the exchange for that state.

Even more significant, States cannot request a waiver to set up a different plan until 2017. There is no wiggle room, the law is the law. There is no opt-out language. This is a clear mandate that exchanges be established in every state by 2014. States are required to spend the time, money and resources to set up and operate the insurance exchange. They may choose to have one or two or more exchanges or set up regional exchanges. A single payer type plan or a public option with or without an exchange is not allowed. Thus, as things stand, states cannot experiment with any approach that is not based on the private insurance market exchange model until 2017, after they have set up an exchange or the federal government has set one up for them.
I guess they didn't like the Greens idea of everyone covering everyone in a way that profits everyone instead of just a few. They do resist pretty much any good idea. It seems to me they've well proven themselves irresponsible citizens, that's polite speak for crooks, and that they deserved to be put out of business. Instead we'll have big healthcare markets dominated by a few big companies with a lot of names. Kind of like buying a candy bar, you think there are a lot of choices but its usually only 3 companies products. We can expect much more of this now that the Supreme Court has allowed corporations to patent living organisms, yes they want to own all the seed, and eliminated all limits on how much they could spend on political campaign, yes they want to one all the politicians. Gosh, I thought they already owned Congress. Oh well, now that we have company owned electronic elections I hope you've all said your good-byes to decency and democracy. Those who called this plan socialism need to study the difference between socialism, corporatism and fascism, and perhaps eat their words. I'll provide the salt.