Social Costs & American Healthcare

Social Costs & American Healthcare

 

By J.M. Hamilton (6-27-2020)

 

Social costs are the expense bore by society, at large, for the production of certain goods and services; and yet, these costs, or future liabilities, generally, are not factored into the retail price of the good or service.  As ninety-nine percent of American society is disenfranchised by the political duopoly (i.e. Establishment Dems and GOP), social costs are a topic that is, conveniently, rarely discussed. 

And yet, these costs, or liabilities, are both real and can be astronomical. 

JMH has written about social costs before... perhaps not directly, but certainly touched upon the subject in write ups on Big Oil and Gun manufacturing.  Read here and here. 

 

Take U.S. Big Oil, for instance… the modern-day Death Star of our times.  Here, the social costs for producing gas & oil not only includes planetary destruction, disease & fatalities from pollution, but for American citizens, endless Middle East war (and the resulting austerity and lack of social services that are cut off, as a result of the cost for these wars).

 

The social costs associated with the Big Oil industry run in the tens of trillions, minimum… merely, by assigning $50,000, per head, to the lives of the planet’s 7.8 billion human occupants.  

 

In the past, JMH has recommending imposing strict liability and criminal sanctions on Boardrooms and C-suites, as a means by which to address social costs.  But if we really want to call attention to social costs, we should assign expense, liability, & numbers.  Moreover, we should allocate social costs – not only to the businesses, themselves (say Exxon Mobil’s financial statements) - but to a US government that is, ultimately, responsible & captured by this industry.

 

Since multinationals, in this example, can’t bear the social costs of its business model, those costs will ultimately fall upon the US taxpayer for cleanup and remediation.  Social cost, unaccounted for in the retail price of a product or service, is just one more means by which the wealthy privatize profits, while socializing losses; one more means by which toxic liabilities are transferred from private ledgers to public balance sheets.

 

Taken to its logical conclusion, if unfunded liabilities – resulting from social costs – were to suddenly appear on America’s Federal balance sheet, the US government would be bankrupt.  No amount of money printing (aka debt monetization by the FED) could cover these liabilities and future fiscal outlays, w/out serious ramifications for the dollar as a storehouse of value and as the global fiat currency.  And given the acceleration of climate change, arguably, this is a bill that is rapidly coming due. 

 

There are many, many industries generating astronomical social costs.  Start accounting for social costs, and the path to real economic reform, and structural change, may begin in earnest. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we take nothing else from today’s piece, please remember this: Social costs, picked up by taxpayers, are just more welfare for big biz & Wall St.  As we let the concept of social costs sink in, and the assignment of liability … think about all those billionaires and multinationals who are pushing to reopen the economy – in the middle of a pandemic – and America’s failing for-profit healthcare system.

 

Think about the tragic surge in coronavirus cases w/in the GOP states of Arizona, Florida, and Texas.   

 

Why would these businesses, and billionaires, want to risk harm to the American consumer and the labor pool, by reopening the economy prematurely?

 

To answer that question, we have to ask: Who pays for American healthcare?  We know the taxpayer pays for publicly provided healthcare (see Medicare and Medicaid); and we know billionaires and multinationals do everything in their power to dodge taxation and increasingly, pay less and less US taxes.

 

We know that US employers have increasingly shifted the cost of private healthcare insurance onto the backs of America’s - disenfranchised - labor pool. 

 

The bottom line: billionaires, multinationals - pushing to reopen the US economy – increasingly, are NOT responsible for medical costs (except to profit by them).  As with taxation, the oligarchy has become extremely adept at dodging US medical expense, as well as, the social contract.  

 

That is to say, the social costs of opening up the economy prematurely – w/out adequate medical care for the resulting viral catastrophe – are borne on the backs, and lives, of the American consumer and taxpayer (who cannot dodge taxation or medical expense).  

 

This callousness, greed, & myopia is setting America, the US economy, and labor up for a great, great fall.  All so that some highly, non-essential, C-suites and billionaires can make their quarterly targets. 

 

Does America’s, owned, political duopoly – Establishment Dems & GOP – care about any of this?  Absolutely not. They’re too worried about their stock portfolios.

 

So how do we make this right?  

 

Assign medical costs - in this instance, the social costs for a premature restart - to the donor class, billionaires and multinationals, for a grossly incompetent and negligent economic reopening.  And suddenly, we may see an oligarchy that actually cares about something more than their bonuses, capital gains, and financial engineering. 

 

Who knows?  The oligarchy might actually insist upon a highly efficient, single-payer, healthcare system.

 

Such is the, potential, power of placing a number on social costs, and making sure these liabilities are borne by protected industries & plutocrats (or allocated to the Federal balance sheet, already very much encumbered by long term debts accrued bailing out the financial aristocracy & Wall St.).

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020

American Apartheid & Denazification …

American Apartheid & Denazification … 

 

Establishment Dems & GOP have screwed the American people out of: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

 

Let the nation’s collective guilt not be a temporary phenomenon, but rather a daily lesson:

 

That equality, freedom, and justice are not abstract ideas to be entrusted in the hands of corrupt politicians; but ideas, and values, that must be fought for w/ each and every American breath.

 

-    

By J.M. Hamilton (6-14-2020)

 

The events of the last several weeks show a virus and resulting economic crisis can reveal a great many truths about a nation and its society.  A nasty pandemic, raging – economic & political - inequality, Great Depression level unemployment, and the systemic racism & murder of black Americans… have all collided together in an economic & political supernova.   

 

The catalyst: A Minneapolis police officer spent between eight-and-nine minutes kneeling on the throat of a handcuffed & prone black American, George Floyd.

 

Mr. Floyd was made a martyr by a white officer of the law for, allegedly, passing a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill.  The scene was caught on cell phone and it galvanized & revealed four hundred years of inequality, racism, slavery, and thuggery… the exact opposite of what the United States proclaims it stands for: equality, life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.  

 

But deeper analysis reveals an entire economic system that profits from what JMH has termed, the US Apartheid Economy. 

 

What was Apartheid?  I’ll defer to History.com to sum it up:

 

From 1948 through the 1990s, a single word dominated life in South Africa.  Apartheid – Afrikaans for “apartness” – kept the country’s majority black population under the thumb of a small white minority. The segregation began in 1948 after the National Party came to power.  The party instituted policies of white supremacy, which empowered white South Africans, descendant’s from Dutch and British settlers, while further disenfranchising black Africans.  Racist attitudes about “natives” colored white society.  Many white women in South African learned how to use firearms … 

 

Gee whiz, sound familiar?  Systemic racism, a privileged white population, a divide & conquer political strategy… pitting white against black, white supremacy, nationalism (an ideology that preys upon white fear), economically & politically disenfranchised blacks & minorites, and – not covered in the previous paragraph – an overwhelming police state presence designed to protect the assets of a privileged few and strike fear & intimidation into all nonwhites (as well as, anybody who falls outside proscribed societal norms)… 

 

… Damn, it’s as if Apartheid was made in America.

 

As a college student in the eighties, w/ a deep interest in politics… the most embedded memory from that era, on this topic, was the searing image of white Apartheid police officers siccing German Shepherds on the black population and those same officers deploying bullwhips against black South Africans. 

 

Substitute firehoses for bullwhips… and the images could have been taken from American Civil Rights protests throughout the Deep South, during the 1960s.  All of which makes me wonder, if Hitler picked up some of his ideas from a fascist United States – and he did – did the United States provide the playbook for Apartheid and white colonial domination?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We know why political leadership often deploys a divide & conquer economic & political strategy (aka nationalism), pitting races against one another.  Divide and conquer, based upon race, taps right into the fight-or-flight response, driven by fear.  A privileged minority, or majority, is so afraid of economic or political loss – and/or loss of societal favor – that this fear turns to hate, and this hate turns to outrages – crimes & murder -  that is completely at odds with humanity and what Lincoln termed: “the better angels of our nature.”

 

Divide & conquer also provides a convenient distraction, while a predatory elite loot the economy and the government. 

 

There’s a reason why US multinationals and billionaires have marketed & pandered, heavily, to #BlackLivesMatter protests, while their German Shepherd – The US Chamber of Commerce – continues to lobby for a failed, racist, status quo, and larger & more frequent corporate bailouts; there’s a reason why boardrooms and C-suites remain lily-white.  

 

And there’s a reason why two very old, tired, white men - emissaries for the US Apartheid economy – neolib/neocon - top the two centrist party tickets for 2020. 

 

JMH does not believe bigotry, hatred and racism is an, entirely, learned response.  Somewhere in our psyche, in our DNA, in our history, buried deep in the subconscious, perhaps, as mentioned above, w/in the fight-or-flight reflex itself, are the seeds of hatred and racism.  There is little doubt that, among some humans, it takes very little from the environment, or societal nudge, to spark racism.  Deprive a person of education, suspend intellect, logic, thought, run w/ simian instinct - add a heavy dose of deprivation & economic hardship - and presto … a racist very well may appear. 

 

Either way, perhaps the best responses to racism are via education (teach members of society that racism is wrong) and by addressing economic inequality (eliminating a key source of fear & hatred).

 

Which brings us to denazification.  America needs to overhaul its history books.  We need, mandatory, classes dedicated to teaching our children – all children, in all fifty states – about the dark underbelly of the United States: genocide of Native-Americans, slavery, and systemic racism.  Like post-WW2 Germany, we may need to run U.S. citizens through the death camps in the American South (i.e. plantations, slave quarters, and/or through today’s private prison industrial complex).  This might even give repugnant private prison contractors a revenue stream, after the nation outlaws prison privatization.  Germany kept its death camps open, post-WW2, as museums.  The U.S. should keep its death camps open and we should parade generation after generation of Americans right through them.

 

Our kids, like Germany’s children, need to be educated on how entirely unexceptional & exploitive the United State is and remains to this very day.

 

Will education, alone, eliminate hatred and racism… in the short term, probably not.  In the longer term, it can be a tremendous source for good. 

 

Of course, education, platitudes, and words are all meaningless if the US doesn’t address the source of the fear itself.  The very economic realities spawning racism and the elite’s divide & conquer strategy - which is poverty and a neoliberal economy that no longer serves the American people.  Rising growth, or GDP, or greater trickledown policies - or any other fairytales that the Chicago School of Economics dreams up – won’t address the levels of economic deprivation and the resulting systemic racism.  Since Reagan came to power, wealth has been transferred at an exponential pace – within the private and public sectors – from all Americans to a few billionaires and an ever-shrinking pool of monopolies, multinationals & utilities. 

 

It’s time to reverse that flow.  It’s time for the American people, who have been destroyed by the economic royalists, to have their day; it’s time to remove the real economic roadblocks that triggers fear, hatred, and racism.  Starting w/ - as proscribed by FDR – an economic bill of rights; a UBI; a healthcare system that works for all & is fully portable, via Medicare for All.  And to pay for it, and mitigate the unseemly power of a financial aristocracy that has failed – not only the American people, but themselves – we need: wealth taxes directed at billionaires and multinationals; we need a very simplified – progressive - tax code; the tax deductibility of interest on debt – removed; and most importantly, the American people need a Federal Reserve bank that will serve the American people, not Wall Street shysters. 

 

Finally, the nation needs to rid itself of the current cadre of corrupt gangsters w/in the Congress – from the two establishment political parties - who have placed profiting from the US Apartheid economy before the interests of the American people. 

 

So, in summary, what do the American people need: nothing short of real economic, educational, fiscal & monetary, healthcare and political reform.  Basically, a rejection of the status quo, offered by Messrs. Biden & Trump.  We need a restoration of the first principles that the nation was founded upon, w/ the economic reforms necessary to make it happen … call it an American Renaissance … a renewed commitment to greater equality.  Greater economic & political equality will drive home true American exceptionalism, and a reinvigorated US economy: a real commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans.

 

And if a few billionaires are unhappy as a result… I hear there are bunkers in New Zealand.  

 

Besides, what do billionaires & monopolists have to lose, the pitchforks have arrived. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020

 

 

The US looks a lot like… Communist China

The US looks a lot like… Communist China

China sent a fresh batch of troops into Hong Kong on Thursday, and its military issued a statement saying its Hong Kong Garrison will “resolutely follow” the central government’s instructions.

-      China sends fresh troops into Hong Kong as military pledges to protect ‘national sovereignty” – CNBC

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Saturday it was ready to provide military help to authorities scrambling to contain unrest in Minneapolis, where George Floyd's death has sparked widespread protests, but Gov. Tim Walz has not requested federal troops.

-      Pentagon Ready to Send US Troops to Minneapolis if State Asks – NY Times

By JM Hamilton (5-31-2020)

Quite possibly one of the few positive notes – in an otherwise catastrophic & dystopian week, here in America - was seeing the US, and many allies, finally begin to stand up to Communist China. It was long overdue; it was necessary for economic & national security reasons and for moral reasons.  China has gotten away w/ mercantilism for decades… reaping the rewards of a first world power, while not being held accountable for human rights and trade abuses. Stealing technology from Western multinationals… while insisting that Western businesses operating on China’s soil play, exclusively, by their rules has for too long been tolerated.

Moreover, China is continually cracking down on its citizens and minorities.  Faced w/ a nasty pandemic & trade tensions, we are seeing China’s communist leadership’s ugly side. 

Could it get worse?  We are still in the early innings of the pandemic, if not the bottom of the first, and China’s communists will want to do everything possible to distract its citizens from a viral economic, financial, and political crisis.  And so it is with Mr. Trump… our POTUS has talked smack about China for many years.  But notably, it wasn’t until his own administration’s poll numbers began to drop – as a result of its handling of the pandemic – that Trump decided to, finally, turn up the heat against China.

Was it warranted…?  Yes.

Is the timing suspect…?  Yes.

Did Trump go far enough… Not by a long shot.

While Trump and Pompeo are about to tee off on Hong Kong, which arguably will penalize China, the trade sanctions against mainland China appear to have gone missing.  In regards the primary advocates of globalism and the Chinese government … the wishes of the US Chamber and the preeminence of the stock market – at least in Trump’s eyes - appear to have influenced the administration’s decision making (not to mention, major US donors in bed w/ the communist government).

This provides a quick overview for my central point, which is the remarkable similarities that exist between the two nations, China & the United States.  It came to me as I was watching military forces – indeed, a police state - beat on peaceful protestors in Hong Kong and on the citizens of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Which got me thinking about other areas of commonality the two superpowers share.

Here’s what I came up with.

Both nations are run by oligarchy.  It’s no accident that many of China’s ruling party, that operate w/in the National People’s Congress, are very wealthy… just as it is no accident that many of the members of the US Congress are millionaires.  Communist China’s legislative body has, at least, 100 billionaires (in US dollars), as of 2017.  The US congress has no billionaires but lots and lots of multi-millionaires. 

China and the US are both governed, for all intents & purposes, by one party rule.  China is run by the Communist Party of China.  In the US, we have the political duopoly, which - despite fighting over social issues (this keeps citizens at each other’s throats, the MSM happy, and the illusion of choice alive) – often vote in lockstep.  The Dems & the GOP are virtually indistinguishable when voting upon the economic & foreign policy interests of their mutual donors: billionaires; multinationals; and of course, the military industrial complex. For reference, see the latest round of plutocratic bailouts under the CARES Act and via the FED.

Both nations, China and the US, have their share of zombie enterprises.  In China, we see state run enterprises, w/ financial statements that are mysterious and opaque.  Here in the states, many corporations are deep in debt and highly dependent upon government largesse to stay afloat, or rely upon the interest rate crushing polices of the FED to provide them w/ cheap debt or equity w/in the markets.  These zombie enterprises, in turn, kickback to the ruling elite/politicians. 

To fuel these two economies, both the US and China rely upon a pool of slave labor.  The average income of a Chinese laborer is less than $15,000 (using today’s exchange rate).  The average income of American labor is $48,000, but this figure is deceptive when we consider the Gig Economy, the for-profit US healthcare system, and that 40% to 50% of Americans can’t meet a $400 emergency obligation (and one in five US children living in poverty). Factor in regional differences & expense… and yes, please try making it in New York on $48,000 a year. 

China and the US, both, have a nasty history of crushing and oppressing minorities, political dissent, and engaging in rampant sexism and pay disparity.  China has its gulags and slave labor camps, and the US has the largest prison system in the world (followed by China), which also may house slave labor installations. 

Both countries operate police & surveillance states, so as to protect billionaires, corporations, and government officials at the top of the food chain. On foreign policy, does China bully its neighbors?  Does America push around its allies?  The answer, yes to both. 

And the list of similarities goes on and on.  Looks like China’s and the United States’ pool of ruling elite have a great deal in common.  Perhaps that’s why Trump, pre-pandemic, found Chairman Xi so intoxicating?

Perhaps the key, remaining, difference is freedom of speech.  The very same First Amendment that the present US administration has threatened, with: litigation against reporters; its own campaign of disinformation & lies; and with threats of stronger libel laws and draconian punishment of whistleblowers.  To be fair, prior administrations also have had their run ins w/ the First Amendment, the fourth estate, and whistleblowers. 

Where am I going with this?  

It seems very odd -- contrary to the diet of apple pie, exceptionalism, and mom we are fed daily -- that the US, increasingly, resembles totalitarian China. 

Which brings us to another point of difference:  The Sino – government actually fears its people.  There’s a reason why the state, and Communist Party, stifles dissent and its citizens.  Clearly, it is frightened.  US leadership, on the other hand, appears unworried about the chaos their policies of globalism, neoliberalism, and the US empire (not to mention, the persecution of American minorities) have wrought… and whether or not it will eventually blowback?  Then again, given the size of the US police & surveillance state, and the DOD budget, perhaps I’ve missed the boat, entirely.  

In fact, the US oligarchy appears afraid… very afraid.

Perhaps, while the US government is blowing trillions on a country under viral siege, an economy in free fall, and Wall Street billionaires…  it might be time to look at structural reforms, based upon: an economic bill of rights; human rights; Medicare for All; a Green New Deal; dismantling the largest prison system the world has ever seen, along w/ the police & surveillance state; ending trillions in welfare for Wall Street & monopolies; and pulling out of America’s endless wars?   

Just for starters.

In this manner, the US would look a lot less like a, frightened, totalitarian state; and, above all, leadership would renew its commitment to the American people and the nation. 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020

COBRA

COBRA

Why so expensive? It’s because US doctors prescribe more treatments, and those treatments cost much more than they do elsewhere. Most governments limit the price of treatments, freeriding on the US market to stimulate investment in medicine. American hospitals and drug companies have enormous leeway to raise prices — insurers have limited bargaining power, and uninsured patients even less.

 

Nor is all this money bringing any obvious reward. Compared with other rich countries, the US ranks at or near the bottom on life expectancy, infant mortality, adolescent pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, drug-related mortality, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and arthritis. No, the healthcare system can’t be blamed for all that — but it is hardly covering itself with glory.

 

-       US Healthcare is literally killing people – Financial Times

 

“When we look back, we will see this as a moment that laid bare some of the dysfunctions and inequalities in the American healthcare system,” says Adam Gaffney, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a pulmonary and critical care doctor. “We have a completely fragmented, privatized health system that continues to fail us.”

 

-       How coronavirus broke America’s Healthcare System – Financial Times

 

By JM Hamilton (5-17-2020)

 

One of the more revealing aspects of the 2008 financial crisis was how quickly Congress was corralled into bailing out the wealthy and the financial elite, under the TARP program, while America’s middle class & poor were quickly forgotten. Despite catastrophic national debt and no matter the year, the money is always there for another round of donor bailouts & welfare, while everybody else is expected to enjoy austerity & raw capitalism.

 

Since the pandemic’s beginning, the 2008 playbook is being utilized again, albeit w/ some minor assistance for labor.  Remember: Moral hazard, concerning state aid, per the establishment, only applies to the 99%... the elites would never get hooked on a free government assistance (all evidence notwithstanding). 

 

A quick recap: Faced w/ the coronavirus, the US Congress passed the CARES Act. The CARES Act, among other things, afforded $1200 to America’s working women & men (except for undocumented immigrants, who do most of the backbreaking labor), plus $600 in supplementary unemployment benefits through July.  Of equal importance, and for purposes of comparison, the CARES Act also authorized the Federal Reserve to create $4 trillion to bailout a debt-ridden Wall Street economy, the billionaire class, and debt markets.

 

And, as we were reminded again, last week, both the House and the Senate were too busy rearranging their stock portfolios -while the pandemic attacked the nation - to bother notifying the public.

 

Under the CARES Act, Congress attempted to offer assistance to labor, by providing small business w/ loans, so as to incent the maintenance of full payroll … but who was the House & Senate really helping?  Part of the US labor relief effort was to be administered through Small Business Administration (SBA) lending, under the CARES Act, which has proven singular by its complete ineptness in execution. 

 

Among the kaleidoscope of errors in administering PPP (or Paycheck Protection Program): large businesses, w/ access to public debt markets, availed themselves to millions, if not billions in the aggregate, for a program designed for small & medium sized business (many of these leviathans were connected to the Trump Admin); oversight of the SBA’s PPP program was an afterthought and Congress – despite protests after the fact - basically turned loose the Trump administration, SBA, Treasury, and Wall St. banks to administer the program (we can see how that turned out); the small business program is known for changing and fluctuating rules, particularly on the debt forgiveness, which was to occur as long as 75% of the loan went to worker payroll… it’s become such a problem that many businesses have begun returning their loans, which means employees lose out; and finally, a large number of these businesses – most unfortunately – will never see the light of day when the economy reopens.  They’ll end up closed or in bankruptcy.  

 

As with many US Federal programs – the key feature appears to be throwing money at the problem, rather than addressing structural defects w/in the US economy – the rank smell of fraud is in the air.  Rather than helping labor, as it was, allegedly, intended… PPP has turned into free-for-all financial buffet for the connected & wealthy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As with 2008, and during the present crisis, the central idea is for a captured & controlled US Congress to do everything w/in its power to maintain the failed status quo.  Hence, the exceptionally nasty optics of trillions in welfare going to Wall Street, while ordinary Americans are not receiving enough to survive on (especially when we factor in the death dealing US healthcare system).  Then again, 40 to 50% of Americans were barely surviving before the pandemic. Many were working for less than a living wage and receiving government assistance. Now, imagine the financial wrinkle this virus has weighed upon their lives, during a time of catastrophic unemployment & another Great Depression. Imagine the one in five US children living in poverty? 

 

To come to the point: Even when Congress attempts to help America’s working women & men – many of whom serve on the front lines of this crisis – the end result often is little more than cover for bailing out ultra-wealthy special interests.

 

Consider House legislation passed last Friday… the so-called HEROES Act, which is DOA.  The cornerstone of the healthcare effort & assistance – passed by the House - is not aimed at American labor, but in propping up America’s patchwork of failed healthcare profiteering. 

 

In these United States, when a worker is terminated, they are offered something called COBRA, which allows the former employee to continue their employer’s miserable healthcare package, but, solely, at the employee’s expense. (If the employer doesn’t provide healthcare, or it’s a Gig job, there’s always the failed ACA or Medicaid.)  As the US healthcare system is largely employer driven, a layoff means most US workers will blow their severance pay, if they receive severance pay, on COBRA.  You know, so that an employee’s children and/or significant other can maintain healthcare coverage.  Food and rent becomes secondary, w/ healthcare becoming primary, particularly during a pandemic.  Any meager savings, an employee has accumulated, will likely quickly evaporate.  And this issue, COBRA, is huge considering record unemployment filings for the months of April and May, and particularly, w/ many white collar jobs now on the chopping block.

 

So with cascading layoffs, what does Congress do… they graciously agree to bailout the Healthcare insurance cartel w/ COBRA.  Basically saddling US workers – newly laid off, many not paid a living wage to begin with – with a dizzying array of deductibles, copays, and annual deductibles (please be sure and read the fine print).  

 

By the way, hats off to The Intercept for bringing another Insurance Industry welfare scam to light: COBRA.  

 

The bottom line: US healthcare is little more than an assembly line, where the profit making model is not based upon health or healthcare outcomes, but how much can the healthcare industry generate in fees, and resulting debt, with which to soak the already drowning American workforce.  Employees get laid off, and employers and employees can no longer afford medical insurance, due to the viral crisis and/or C-Suite mismanagement… zero worries, the US Congress is there to bailout US Health insurers with COBRA benefits, allegedly, or under the pretense of, helping labor.

 

See in Washington… even when America’s middle class and poor get assistance, or the lack thereof, America’s wealthy are the true bailout beneficiaries.  We’ve seen this w/ PPP under the CARES Act, and we may see it, again, w/ COBRA under the HEROES Act or some derivative legislation to come.  Americans also see it in backdoor subsidies to multinational income & profit statements, when corporations - reporting out billions in earnings - use state aid to backstop their labor force, who are not paid a living wage.  And on and on... 

 

Did Congress show any imagination or initiative… like agreeing to cover all Americans for their medical costs, during the pandemic, by bypassing the insurance cartel middlemen or pharmacy benefit managers altogether… absolutely not.  Imagination and initiative are beyond the House’s pay grade.  The Congress isn’t there to lead.  The Congress is there to take orders from wealthy insurance companies, trade associations, and lobbyist.

 

Meanwhile, the national debt spirals out of control, but not so high that Congress can't waste hundreds of billions on corporate/donor welfare. Per the Financial Times, even the AMA (hardly a disinterested party) says the US spends 760 billion in wasted dollars on the most expensive healthcare program the world has ever seen (w/ consistently worse healthcare outcomes among any other developed nation). My guess, if the AMA says we are wasting $760 billion, the number the United States is actually wasting is closer to $1.5 to $1.8 trillion dollars. 

 

How do I know?  Because most Western democracies spend half of what the US does on medical care, as a percent of GDP, again, w/ vastly better results. And those countries, and their citizens, see what’s happening in the US and they want no part of America’s healthcare model.  So if the US is spending 18% of GDP or $3.7 trillion on healthcare, then half that figure provides close to $1.8 trillion in savings. But if the US is to have any hope of achieving that savings, then America has to eliminate the middlemen, it has to step on the toes of special interests, and price gouging from Big Pharma must end.  In short, the Congress has to do its job.

 

But don’t look for this Congress, run by a corrupt political duopoly, to step up… the bailouts for the wealthy – and for the murderous enterprise that is for-profit US healthcare – will continue.  Americans will continue to enter bankruptcy, w/ healthcare bills being the primary reason.  And all you need to remember about COBRA, it’s just another component, or layer, of the failed for-profit US healthcare system designed to enrich a privileged few, and another means to subjugate American labor.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020