We want efficient intermediaries of risk to be sure, so adjusting tax incentives and decentralizing healthcare spending might make sense, if it helps the system become more efficient. But I’ll argue that that has nothing to do with screwing people out of coverage, which is also part of the problem. So as we look for solutions to all aspects of this mixed-up mess let’s not blithely assume profit driven economics and free markets are the solution. I think we’re looking for a hybrid.

It is not a suitable method for paying all the normal medical expenses of the elderly. There is no perfect solution for that problem, but what people need to be able to do is save up for old age, to accumulate wealth. We can’t do that when the government is sucking the value out of the economy with foreign wars, bailouts, and wasteful, centralized healthcare programs. We can’t do that when the government is sucking the value out of the dollars in our savings accounts with massive deficit spending.

I don’t think it is fair for anyone to draw any simple conclusions about “free markets in healthcare don’t work” or “government involvement in healthcare doesn’t work” by looking at our current system. It’s not a particular good example of anybody’s ideal. It’s a great example of a mixed-up mess.

The main thing that is messed up about healthcare coverage isn’t even being addressed by the plan: that it is heavily tied to employment because of tax incentives. Why not start out by adjusting tax incentives to give individuals control over their healthcare spending?

Wasn’t it mere months ago that the public option was a compromise substitute for a single-payer plan that political toadies determined to be unattainable (i.e. unacceptable to congressional corporate clients)?

Now it’s cheap jewelry.

Months of ludicrous posturing about reaching a “bipartisan” agreement–during which, no matter what is passed, secret deals are cut limiting constraints on PhARMA profits and prohibiting negotiated drug pricing.

Now Kabuki Democrats are tired of Republican intransigence and willing to use Budget Reconciliation procedures to pass reform legislation by a simple majority.

The trouble is (Surprise!) those procedures will require stripping the public option from the bill. Gosh! Who could have foreseen that handing over the bill’s fate to Budget Chairman and ardent public plan foe, Kent Conrad, would produce a bill without a public option?

If Democrats were unconcerned about bipartisanship and serious about a public option, they’d let the Senate bill pass without that provision and insist on it’s inclusion during conference with the House. After all, it doesn’t matter what either chamber initially passes–what both chambers finally agree to is what becomes law, and conference reports can’t be filibustered.

But one of the few objection that can be raised against consideration of a conference report is if it contains language violating Senate rules-like, you guessed it: noncompliance with The Budget Act. One could say using Reconciliation may be the ONLY way of ensuring a public option doesn’t become law.

And a one, and a two, and a…. Cue the bubble machine.

Check out what George Carlin has to say about all the “Nuanced” Health Care Debacle B.S. —

http://blameblakeart.wordpress.com

Worker productivity has doubled in the last 50 years or so. There’s plenty of money to fund adequate healthcare for all. Our problem is that the rich have siphoned away all the wealth created for our productivity gains. There’s plenty of money for endless war (in sums far greater than any healthcare bill would require). But now we’re told there’s not enough money for decent healthcare? That’s not plausible.