The "N" word is nationalization: Governmental CONTROL, BIG BROTHER WATCHING, LACK OF COMPETITION IN OUR "FREE" MARKETS...there is not one phony aspect of fear mongering about nationalization that has not been put forth. So why are we swallowing the bailout(s) so readily? Why is dumping governmental money into industries that are failing at least in part because of inflated salaries and mismanagement in addition to their own bad investments WITHOUT ANY STRINGS ATTACHED a better approach?
The answer is it's not. And what's more, we're going to die on our misunderstood philosophical cross...really, we will die on it. Because health insurance needs to be nationalized. So why the delay when Congress and the President are so gung ho about bank rescue?
The most obvious reason is because health insurance is lagging behind the gargantuan losses that became apparent in the banking industry and hedge funds as people tried to get their money and we found out that "investment" money had declined to frightening levels in these industries. Of course there were signs, of course there were abuses and of course, this influx of new money is going to be wasted until the government actually puts some strings onto its provision of money.
Health insurance on the other hand, is still being financed by enough Americans for them to be able to maintain their stock prices through revenue in spite of terrible investments, inflated salaries and corruption. And so we'll watch as Obama weakly lets the Health Insurance Crisis play out until there is some systemic collapse brought about by the misconduct of insurance companies. Or maybe, the health insurers will emerge victorious as the baby boomers become the reverse mortgage kings and banks become the new homeowners of the next twenty years...all to support the insurance industry.
Nationalization means that the government gets CONTROL when the government supports an industry. In Health Insurance, as recently as last week we saw that United Health Group became a positive stock because it got more lucrative MEDICARE contracts and that combined with premium price increases looks good for revenue.
We have nationalized health insurance programs. Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIP (which filters programming down to state levels) are governmental insurance programs. Plans offered to governmental workers, some of the largest group plans in the nation, are in part subsidized by our tax dollars. Does it really make sense to die on the cross of no government which is not now nor has it been true for decades?
Health insurers make money (revenue) through numbers of people insured at the top price they can get in premium dollars. In exchange people are supposed to get assistance in paying for the risk of illness. Any time a health "insurer" excludes a group (fat, smoking, had cancer, rides motorcycles, alcoholic, more than two glasses a day of red wine), that insurer reduces the risks it is willing to cover...it is reducing insurance. Any time a health insurer gets a Medicare contract it INCREASES policy holders. Right now insurers get the best of both worlds, cooperation with increased dollars from consumers and government with expectations of covering less as people confuse MORALITY with the proper function of health insurers, calculation of risk. People on drowsy medications suffer more heart attacks, asthma patients see physicians more often than non asthma patients, the mentally ill are draining our system. We've become a ridiculously rigid population regarding our neighbors out of the misguided notion that by allying ourselves with corporations something good will happen to us. Well, here we go. More money to banks, to insurers, to state governments so that these entities and organizations can determine who is worthiest of them spending their dollars on. Obama needs to stop being non confrontational and trying to convince the American public that through technology updates billions will be saved when THERE ARE NO PROVISIONS THAT SUCH SAVINGS WILL BE PASSED ONTO CONSUMERS.
Nationalized health insurance will come, but probably not in our lifetimes and that is shame on us.
