Single payer now!

My one personal example illustrates why the U.S. needs single payer health care... I pay over six thousand dollars in health insurance premiums per year for the 'privilege' of shelling out an infinite amount of deductible cost for medical care (which is promised to increase next year). Until my medical needs exceed my 'out-of-pocket' expenses, my insurer (Blue Cross Blue Shield) makes a profit of >6K per year just to keep my name on their 'covered' list. I have a medical issue that I really should investigate, but the prospect of paying out of pocket for doctors visits and diagnostic scans has me putting off care. I will say it again, if I could enroll in a single payer health plan for the current cost of my premium (or even with a significant increase), I would sign up in a new-york-minute. American health insurance is a scam where the insurance providers charge a high 'premium' that is immediately entered into the profit line of their accounting books at the expense of the health and well-being of their victims. This can be fixed.

Long or infinite waits of Socialized healthcare

Harry Leslie Smith, a life long advocate for GB's National Health Service has died. His comments are worth hearing. 

My comment:

The most often repeated critique of 'socialized medicine' is long wait times. These same critics rarely point out the high costs of private-for-profit-socialized-health-insurance-medicine; costs that produce infinite wait times for patients without the wherewithal to pay for healthcare. In Harry Leslie Smith's youth, there were no 'long waits' to see a doctor; members of his community had variable waits for death, at times, very painful deaths. Today, many Americans have a similar long/moderate/short waits for death. Given the choice, most Americans chose the 'long wait' for care over the wait for death. We now have a Democratically controlled House and a number of States are under a Democratic majority; they must make this issue a priority. It's long past time to make healthcare affordable to everyone in this country.

Arms 'Marketing'

Short video of William Hartung at TRNN describing how the MIC profits from war and government policy. My comment:

William Hartung hit the nail right square on the head. A popular meme spouted by many pro-capitalist economists is that in free markets, market forces (consumer spending/consumption) drives what gets produced. But somehow, these same economists never examine the 'market forces' of the planned military arms economy (created by governments, especially by the U.S. government). The planned military economy creates forces of lobbyists and special interests who advocate for constant war and continuous arms race. Instead of buying food, childcare, medical care, education and intact ecosystem for our children and grandchildren, American taxpayers are buying updated nuclear weapons and other military hardware, war game exercises, ill-will from hundreds of foreign military bases and global instability from waging and fomenting war. These are economic decisions and American voters need to understand the spending priorities of their government in that light. 

Another useful tool maybe to redefine what economies are. The word 'economy' has Greek roots meaning house or home. The common definition of economy is focused on production/consumption of consumer goods for the purpose of generating profit, a far cry from house/home. A much better definition would be self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants. This would automatically make some sectors of the modern economy 'uneconomic' because they do not promote well-being... the entire offensive arms/military industrial sector.

Name of piece: Code Pink Conference: The Arms Industry Hides Behind Euphemisms (December 29, 2017)

Price control does not stifle innovation

Comment at C&L:

"on the grounds that it was harmful to innovation" 

This is the most absurd of excuses, just look at all the un-executed patents and other intellectual property that corporations have quashed to limit competition. Price controls do not prevent scientists from developing/designing new drugs; they're excuses for pharma to not transfer new treatments from innovators to markets. The middlemen don't want to sell it because they make less profit. 

If the roadblock is big pharma, would it be possible to establish an alternate route to market drugs? Maybe it's time for real competition to enter the pharmaceutical industry.

Austerity is Social Murder

Comment at TRNN at segment describing the effect of government austerity on the Grenfell Towers tragedy at social murder:

[the effects of austerity policies] is murder just as if the actions of a single individual... what happened at Grenfell Towers... is social murder. 

Capitalism is designed to transfer the wealth created by workers to owners. Austerity policies are designed to transfer wealth earned by average workers to wealthy lobbyists and their buyers. Both economic systems and government policies are social constructs; deaths caused by rampant capitalism and/or austerity politics is social murder. 

In the U.S., good examples are (1) profit driven, capitalistic gun manufacturing; NRA lobbying; defunding schools & other public services; and lax gun ownership laws/regulations, etc. (2) Profit driven, capitalistic health care delivery mediated by health insurance corporations; profit driven, capitalistic health care products manufacturers (pharma, medical devices, etc); lax (better under ACA) regulation of insurance providers; lack of transparency (especially financial - real cost of drugs, treatment, facilities, etc), etc.

Social constructs are created by people. People are enculturated to their expectations from their government(s), employers, and other institutions. In the U.S., for single-payer health care to take hold, Americans need to ingrain the expectation that health care is a right and not a privilege of wealth. Social constructs created by people are subject to change by people; it's in our hands.

Open Insulin Project

Comment at Truthout interview about Open Insulin Project's attempt to create a cheaper insulin product for diabetes patients:

Regulations [patents] are tools of power [pharma] to control information [assign who gets to profit]. Secrecy and control of information are enemies of democracy. Transparency and informed choice gives power to the voter/buyer, not the candidate/seller.

Anthony DiFranco is attempting to re-generate the information [insulin patents] controlled by large pharma into marketable drugs. He will have the option of secret patents [like pharma] or open patents [any producer can use]. Open patents are more transparent and give consumers more informed choice.

Comments of the day

At Truthout, "Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has compared people with pre-existing health conditions to cars that have been in accidents.":

Life is a pre-existing condition; it always precedes death. According to GOP reasoning, the pre-existing condition of life makes all living persons ineligible for medical insurance. It would seem we must die to become eligible.
/s

At Truthout, Corporate Agricultural Dumping: Growing the Wealth Gap:

Pressure to increase yields due to agricultural dumping also promotes greenhouse gas release and pollution through fossil fuel powered mechanization, transport & production as well as ever increasing use of agricultural chemicals.

At C&L, Trump's 'Pardons' Are A Threat To Democracy:

There is a big problem shared by Antonin Scalia's concept of Constitutional originalism and biblical literalism... language is symbolic. It is not possible for any language to be literally 'literal'. Written and spoken words are *always* subject to interpretation. 

The U.S. Constitution has a literal component in setting the framework of the U.S. government but it is also has an equally important aspiration component, just read the preamble. If DJT or any other politician is permitted to reduce the Constitution to only its literal elements (as would be the case if he pardons his family, cohort and himself), they would negate the founding values and precepts which have forged a collection of disparate individuals, ethnicities, languages and cultures into this country. We would turn in what Margaret Thatcher once said, "There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families."

At TRNN, Data, Algorithms & Artificial Intelligence: Where is AI Innovation Taking Society?:

"...intellectual property rights cover a lot of things like patents, trademark, copyright, industrial designs, so basically everything that we touch, at one point or the other, has been impacted by intellectual property." 

Intellectual property is the DNA of economies; just as change in DNA evolves new species, change of information/intellectual property evolves economies. Regulation of intellectual property (patents, trademark, copyright, industrial designs, etc.) determines who controls economies. Corporations and their executives derive their power from control of massive amounts of information (examples: Microsoft, big pharma). Issues of income, wealth and power inequality all derive directly and indirectly from the concentration of power through control of information. True reform requires much greater transparency.

He might advance single-payer

Comment at Truthout:

Dr. Paris said, "Letting Obamacare fail, I think, is what the president has implied that he could do pretty easily. The next cost-sharing subsidy payment is due out Thursday. And if he doesn't continue to fund that, the insurance companies are going to go into even more chaos and uncertainty." 

Should DJT actually increase the level of chaos in the currently messy healthcare system, the support for a user friendly, low red tape, single payer system will only increase.

Comment at TRNN where Dean Baker opines states will not be able to establish single payer health care alone:

DEAN BAKER: ...So they're counting on two big pots of funds, the Medicare and Medicaid pots, going to this single-payer system. 

Under a block grant system, like those proposed by the GOP, states would get the Medicare and Medicaid pots. Small grants would force states to maximize heath care returns for each dollar spent. There is practically no dispute that single payer is the most cost effective system of health care delivery... e.g., states have no choice but go single payer.

DEAN BAKER: ...So you have to tell those people that they could keep their own doctors. In many cases, that won't be true because they'll stay outside the system. 

Single payer means there is only one insurer which recompenses health care providers for services given. A doctor who doesn't accept insurer payments will be forced to limit their practice to only those patients who will cover the total costs of their medical care out of their own pockets. It becomes a numbers game - how many doctors will find enough rich patients to support their practice? Most general practitioners won't.

Sign of fear

The New York Times published an op-ed by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein arguing that Democrats need to shift to the center if they want to win elections. At TRNN, Nina Turner says Democrats lost because they've lost touch with their voters. My thoughts (comment at TRNN link):

As I see it, the Penn & Stein op-ed in the NYT was a pre-emptive attempt to frame the debate. In other words, the only news worthy of print ("All the News That's Fit to Print") is defined by the tiny ideological differences between Republicans and establishment Democrats. All other ideas and positions are 'extremist' views and unworthy of print. An excellent example of this bias was the way the NYT covered Bernie's campaign - by not covering it, they deemed his positions and policies 'not fit to print'. The galvanized resistance to the GOP healthcare plan and growing calls for single payer probably has the establishment quaking in their boots.

GOP healthcare bill will tank the economy

Comment at C&L:

Healthcare is currently about 6% of the economy. If the 'mean' GOP deathcare bill manages to cut medical spending and give a hefty tax cut to the wealthy (and kill a number of Americans along the way), this will also have major effects on the larger economy. On the positive side, the funeral industry will grow (/s). On the negative side, taxes cuts for rich people does not change their consumption; it's removing money from the economy; all sick people and their families will be forced to cut their discretionary spending to pay for medical care. The end result, the medical sector of the economy will expand relative to the shrinking of all other parts of the economy.

Good job GOP! (/s)

Related comment at C&L:

Or any perspective outside her donors, no, make that investors. The transfer of healthcare spending on sick Americans to wealthy 'taxpayers' (better described as capitalists plunderers) will make sick Americans spend their discretionary funds on medical care. The rest of the economy will lose out, especially the leisure sector. GOP, the party that will destroy all prospects of future prosperity.

Pharma as a Public Utility?

Truthout asks if Pharma should be treated as a public utility. My comment:

No. The value of pharma is information (drug patents) which are already regulated. Making them public utilities just adds another layer of regulation over existing regulation. Drug prices are high because pharma has 'bought' influence over current regulations; they are more than capable of 'buying' any new regulators/regulations. The better solution is to publicly fund all drug research and have the information publicly available. Any manufacturer with the appropriate facilities can then make any drugs. Ensure high quality manufacturing practices can be insured by requiring that the public can observe/visit/examine facilities at any time. Transparency is a better way to drop drug prices without risking safety.

Health care idea

The Republicans were unable to pass a health insurance reform law. And although the ACA is not  as bad off as they claim, it has flaws which will seriously impede its effectiveness in the future. One of the provisions in the Republican plan was to 'allow' buyers to 'choose' the type of coverage they wanted; or not require sellers (insurance providers) to provide a fixed set of benefits (like mental health or maternity care).

There was no or little talk of rationing during the recent debate over health care. But make no mistake, medical should be rationed. Resources are not unlimited so keeping very ill people alive at the expense of the wellbeing of many younger, healthy people is absurd. The question is how to set limits? A few years ago, there was an essay and study published about how Doctors' end-of-life decision making for themselves differed from the decisions of patients. This might be the best guide to determine the limits of basic medical care. Survey doctors for how the degree and extent of treatment they would pursue if they had a given diagnosis. Use 90-95% coverage of these limits to define the benefits of a basic universal health care plan; ideally, a system where patients never deal with billing paperwork - the billing system alone of the American healthcare system is extraordinarily expensive. Private insurers can offer anything above and beyond basic coverage.

Like the U.S. tax system, the U.S. health insurance system is deliberately complicated to generate the need for 'specialists' to maneuver the system. The beneficiaries are the 'specialists' themselves and their employers (who profit from their work). Consumers pay in time and stress and dollars due to misunderstanding and errors. A single payer system would lift a major burden from consumers.