White House Stubbornly Mired in Rube Goldberg Health Care "Reform"
Congress has a Democratic majority (although real Democratic leadership is so woefully lacking that Blue Dog Dems allied with minority Republicans defy the will of the American people with impunity).
A majority of Americans are demanding a national health care system.
There is already effective common good proposed legislation, HR 676, Medicare for All and S. 703, single payer, universal health care bills, that would be more economical than the stratospheric, unaffordable costs of this private corporate insurance monopoly. Both provide for the common good with an affordable health care system for everyone that would offer better services than the current complicated, dysfunctional, unethical, immoral for enormous profit, private corporate insurance dominated disaster that now exists.
The US would finally be joining other industrialized nations that have had effective, equitable, affordable, universal national health care systems for so many decades.
So, what's the problem?
This president, like his predecessors, and Congress, controlled by the health care industry with money and influence, are deliberately denying the logic and common sense of supporting and implementing these existing national health care bills which are examples of good government. Instead, in a hypocritical pretense of doing something, they would rather cobble together a Rube Goldberg plan that enables the corporate swindling health care profiteers to continue to make billions while consigning the American public to an ongoing struggle for what is a human right, not a commodity, and guaranteeing, for too many, unnecessary death (tens of thousands who cannot afford the coverage under the current for profit system die each year).
In addition, some so-called progressives and unions who should know better, keep blocking support of HR 676 and S. 703.
Robert Kuttner writes at The Boston Globe: "Other countries get better results at lower cost because a universal system naturally emphasizes wellness and prevention, and spends its money on the most cost-effective treatments, not the most expensive ones. Every nation faces similar inflationary pressures because of advances in technology and an aging population; but other advanced countries, using single-payer systems, do a fine job of covering everyone for 10 percent of gross domestic product or less, while we spend upwards of 15 percent and leave out nearly 50 million souls and under-insure tens of millions more.
"Obama's plan is a variant of an astute strategy first proposed by the political scientist Jacob Hacker as a solution to two political obstacles to health reform. First, how do you enlist the uninsured and the anxious insured in the same coalition? Second, how do you build momentum for a single-payer system recognizing that there are not the votes to legislate it all at once?"
[Which is appalling considering that Congress has a Democratic majority.]
"Hacker's insight was that if the government offered a public insurance option, people who liked their present private insurance could keep it, while others could elect the public plan. Coalition problem solved. And the superior efficiencies of the public plan would gradually overtake the rival private plans. Momentum problem solved.
"But Hacker neglected one key political detail - the immense power of the private insurance industry. Not surprisingly, the industry's stance is that any public plan must compete on disadvantageous terms. And most Republicans oppose a public plan outright.
"Obama, the great conciliator, has chosen to work with the private insurance industry rather than targeting it as the primary obstacle to meaningful health reform. Periodic leaks from the White House suggest that if push came to shove, Obama would ditch the public plan in order to get a bill through Congress.
"However, in the push to get legislation in the face of fierce industry and Republican opposition, a good public plan could well be tossed overboard. That would leave a legacy of expanded coverage, but a time bomb of exploding costs, underinsurance, and a squeeze on actual care.
[The best public is HR 676 and S. 703, which already exist, so why stay busy getting dizzy reinventing the wheel.]
"I would much rather see Obama battling for public health insurance, making it clear to Americans that the obstacle to real reform is the private health insurance industry. That, however, is not the president we have."
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