Did Trump embrace … Socialized Medicine?

Did Trump embrace … Socialized Medicine?

The Trump administration laid out a plan Wednesday to fulfill President Trump’s long-standing vow to lower prescription drug prices by allowing states, drug wholesalers and pharmacies to import some cheaper drugs from Canada. But officials could not say when the plan might go into effect, and many questions about its possible scope remain unanswered.

-             Trump administration unveils plan to allow states to buy cheaper drugs from Canada - Washington Post

By JM Hamilton (12-25-2019)

A very ecumenical Happy Holidays!  

What little remains of the US free market system continues to fail the bottom half of Americans, since the power elite no longer embrace capitalism or competition, but rather, rent seeking cartels and monopolies.  It’s a continuing theme in many JMH editorials, the dark underbelly of the American Nightmare (once upon a time, the American Dream).  

Witness the blowup of the Boeing monopoly this week and the long overdue removal of said company’s CEO.  My guess is Boeing’s troubles are just beginning, and that it will take a great deal more than the removal of one man before Boeing turns it around.  Could it possibly be that Boeing stockholders would be better served by a corporate breakup – the parts of the company being worth more than the present toxic combination?  Diseconomies of scale defined: Boeing.

Enough of Boeing… for there is no sector of the economy that takes up a bigger chunk of GDP (18 to 20%), where reckless greed runs unharnessed and soaks up more of America’s disposable income, or the lack thereof, than US healthcare.

That US healthcare is a disaster w/ ever spiraling costs, premiums, co-pays, deductibles – and often, resulting unpayable debt - has been very well documented.  Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote an excellent piece in the Post demonstrating the destructive force this industry - Big Pharma & Healthcare - has become, not only for a plurality of Americans, but for the US economy as a whole.  Afterall, when one predatory monopoly – say Big Pharma - skewers so many Americans, this means less disposable income to be spent on alternative goods and services.  In short, due to a predatory healthcare sector, the balance of the US economy suffers, as aggregate demand is diminished (that is, consumed by healthcare monopolists).  

And rising healthcare & big pharma costs have been utilized as an excuse, by employers, to keep employee wages constricted, despite the fact that employees are shouldering a greater part of the healthcare burden (via the aforementioned escalation in co-pays, deductibles, debt, & increased premiums).  All at a time, when many companies are minting record profits and are engaged in stock buybacks

POTUS Trump, back in 2016, promised he’d rein in the Big Pharma killers (aka murderers).  He also committed to running off the right-wing designed ACA (aka Romneycare; aka Obamacare), which has been an abject failure in containing and controlling medical costs, and replace it w/ something far, far better.   

To date, POTUS Trump has failed in this regard.

All that changed on December 18th when the Washington Post reported that POTUS Trump – on the very same day he was impeached – rolled out a proposal to allow Americans and states to import drugs from Canada.  You know, our socialized medicine neighbor to the North.  (But who am I kidding, all of America’s Western Democractic allies have some version of universal healthcare.  The US, apparently, is the only nation whose elites are greedy enough, so as to allow healthcare cartels, monopolies, special interests, and predatory private equity firms to run roughshod over ordinary citizens.)

Trump’s proposal to use Canada & socialized medicine to bailout Americans - out of our Big Pharma fever dream - also tells us a great deal about: the failure of Congress to do its job in regulating - and funding appropriately the regulation of – big pharma markets; regulatory capture, itself; the corruption of the Congress (both centrist Dems and GOP), owned by healthcare special interests; the power of healthcare oligopolies; the collapse of American capitalism… and raises questions as to why the US healthcare crisis has been allowed to go unchecked for so long.

That Trump had to turn to our socialized medicine neighbor, Canada, for a pharmaceutical solution speaks directly to US business & political leadership’s incapacity to solve real problems.  Canada does have the ability and courage to say “no” to Big Pharma and places caps on pharma costs and price gouging, so as to protect its citizens.  US business & political leadership presently does not exhibit the same courage or will. 

Canada – w/ about a tenth of the US population – can’t supply Americans with medicine, and so Trump’s proposal is likely DOA.   What Canada can offer, however, is a successful socialized medicine alternative to America’s failed private sector healthcare model.  A US healthcare model that no country in the world is seeking to emulate.

In markets that are exceptionally profitable - read healthcare - many entrants into the marketplace would keep medical costs in check, at least that’s what should happen in a healthy free market economy.  But when companies refuse to compete and this in turn, threatens the lives of ordinary Americans - who must either sacrifice lifesaving care or go deep into drowning debt – the government has an obligation to heavily regulate healthcare utilities, cap excessive profit taking, and in some instances, directly compete with cartels and monopolies (see Medicare for All).

In dealing w/ America’s Big Pharma catastrophe, how ironic that Trump reached for a solution that is the embodiment of socialized medicine, Canada, to come to America’s rescue.  Liberals always knew the GOP loved socialism; but up until now, the Republican version of socialism focused on the redistribution of wealth to the 1%. 

Now for the multi-trillion dollar question:  Will centrist Dems exhibit the same courage, as that exhibited by POTUS Trump (and begin to take on the mass murderers that make up Big Pharma)?  Don't hold your breath.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019

Centrism on the Ropes… ?

Centrism on the Ropes… ?

By JM Hamilton (12-15-2019)

A lot of political water has poured under the bridge, since Thanksgiving.  The tide against neolib/neocon centrism continues to gather strength.

Let’s look at some recent examples:

Senator Kamala Harris left the race.  Many thought she would be Obama’s heiress, and in many respects, Kamala was.  She sneered at liberals and as a prosecutor, she was a princess of the mass incarceration state.  But the novelty of Kamala - along w/ her new liberal talking points - wore out quickly.   As with many Dem candidates – who have attempted to adopt more progressive leanings on the campaign trail – her newly found liberalism was, likely, a false front for Kamala’s true beliefs, failed centrism. 

Voters saw through it, and alas, her campaign never caught fire.

Joe Biden, falling in the pols after riding Obama’s neolib/neocon coattails, has come out w/ a unique proposal.  Mr. Biden – a la Pelosi – is said to favor a capped or truncated term in office.  Yes, Wall Street Joe/Big Oil Joe wants to only subject the American people to one term of his failed centrism and pro-corpocracy policies.  The public is thirsty for change, particularly those under thirty-five, who have been shafted by Boomers and Biden’s GOP-Lite/Trump-Lite policies.  As previously mentioned, Joe often praises Republicans, and one look at his voting records tells us why. 

Joe Biden is a Republican.

The problem is, for many voters, one term of Joe is one term too many.

Pete Buttigieg, the flavor of the month, and I suspect soon to be fallen star, has been called out on his ties, and prior employment, to McKinsey.  Everyone knows McKinsey… if the prince of darkness was personified in an advisory firm, it would be McKinsey.  These jerks have eviscerated the middle class, merged companies, and brought us the monopoly economy.  McKinsey is the master of the quick buck.  And McKinsey is BFF with banksters, financial engineering, monopolists, private equity barons, Trump’s border policies, despots & dictators… No wonder Pete was so reticent about his prior employer.  McKinsey, w/ its own internal investment arm, and all those corporate secrets, has been accused of double-dealing & profiteering.  True to form, and w/ all those backroom fundraisers, looks like Mayor Pete has learned from his employer, and plans on his own double-dealing?

Cory Booker… what can you say?  The US Chamber’s candidate, like many centrists, is a laggard in the polls.  So what does a failed centrist do, circa 2019, when they can’t make the debate stage?  They cry to the DNC - and petition candidates who have earned a place on the debate stage - to support a rules’ change.  Heh, if your neolib/neocon policies and talking points can’t move your numbers, why not fix the debate rules to suit your needs?  Let’s see if the DNC caves?

Mr. Bloomberg, billionaire and monopolist, has entered the race.  He’s worried that Joe Biden is faltering, which is true, and that Wall Street, as we know it, and his billions are at risk.  Which is also true.  So Mr. Bloomberg, like any plutocrat, plans on buying as many votes as possible.  If one can't win on the power of one's ideas & personality, buy the election.  Right?  Unfortunately for Mr. Bloomberg, America has already suffered at the hands of one megalomaniacal billionaire, our current White House occupant.  America has also seen the character of the billionaire class, in the form of one Donald Trump, et al.  It’s not a pretty picture – nor was Mr. Stop & Frisk’s time as mayor of NY.  No, many Americans are tired of billionaires, and it's why the majority support a wealth tax.

Corbyn and Labour’s UK Defeat…. One could see this coming, couldn’t you?  The Dem spin doctors had to work double overtime to shovel this out to the public.  After Labour’s defeat… centrists, Biden, and the US MSM were quick to fire off a warning:  to wit, veer too far left Dems (i.e. don’t keep the corpocracy in power), and you too, will suffer Labour’s fate. This was a stretch to begin with, because Labour actually didn’t support the UK working women and men on Brexit.  Brexit was a referendum on: a corporatist/non-democratic EU; globalism; neoliberalism; and yes, failed centrism.  And in a reversal of roles, the Tories wisely chose the side of the working person, and supported Brexit and the referendum (against the establishment).  Labour, most unfortunately, did not.  The US MSM, and Unca Joe, painted this as a failure of progressive/socialist policies, when the UK election was another referendum on Brexit. 

The Party that supported Brexit (breaking against failed centrism & neolib/neocon policies) won.  The Tories.  Oh the ironies.  Therein lies the true lesson: centrism and supranational bodies (see EU) that turn a blind eye to working people are on the ropes.  (The fact that the Tories, like Republicans, will act in ways entirely antithetical to the working class is a story for another day.)

Unca Joe ponders one term… and what day is it, and what year?

And so it goes in America… Dem centrists/establishment candidates claim their working class bonafieds, but then meet in backrooms w/ the corporate elite, raising tens of millions.  Meanwhile, say what one will about the current White House occupant – none of it good – at least Trump, in 2016, was smart enough to pander to working class voters, who had been shafted by establishment Dems and neolibs/neocons.  Looks like Mr. Boris Johnson learned at the hand of a master politician.  

At the end of the day, centrism is a damned ideology… it derives its power from a corporatism that has failed the American people.  You know, the rich grow richer & more powerful, while everyone else is certain of three things: death, taxes, and man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.

Many Dem voters (often called purists) have been fooled and fooled again.  This time, why settle for promises of liberalism and progressive government from centrist candidates, when you can have the real thing: Gabbard, Sanders or Warren.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019