How is this a good thing? The concessions made by the insurance companies are pitiful. If I was a negotiator trying to make a deal with the government to boost my own profits, I don't know if I could even suggest something so unprecedented and extreme as an individual mandate plus an individual subsidy with a straight face. And if I did have the balls to suggest the government do me that big of a favor, I would probably be willing to pony up a lot more in return.
Honestly what's as terrifying as anything else is how bald the lie is and how wholeheartedly the Democratic Party base is willing to swallow the lie and defend their leadership for selling them out. The official, stated purpose of the law is to "give more Americans access to quality, affordable health insurance." Health insurance! Health insurance is a consumer product that big corporations are getting rich selling. Health insurance is not the same thing as health care.
Private corporate health insurance is the kind of 'market based' solution I would expect from the Republican Party. Which once again blows my mind, as the supposedly 'right-wing' party is opposed to what is essentially a wealth redistribution system of big business subsidies disguised as health care. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that they are just so damned stubborn they will betray decades of their own ideology to make the president wrong. The Republican party seems to be willing to reverse reality, saying night is day, black is white, privatization is socialism.
Where are the champions of health care - not health insurance - as a human right? Where are the advocates for public hospitals? For pharmaceutical patent reform? For limiting unethical and lucrative drug marketing practices that result in a glut of unnecessary treatments and ineffective prescriptions? Why is no one interested in examining the most important aspect of the ACA - that it is not real healthcare reform?
Sometimes I honestly wish I could see this from a different perspective. But no matter how many times I try to look at the ACA, from every angle it looks the same. It looks like yet another government-corporate partnership designed to concentrate wealth and power, denying regular citizens even the most basic human dignity when it comes to their health and personal security, and then asking them to be thankful for the favor.
I've called for an end to the madness on this blog before - both of these awful political parties need to be abandoned, publicly shamed, and buried forever if this country is ever going to move forward towards something that just a little less resembles corporate fascism. This seems as true as ever in the face of the whole Obamacare debacle.
See, I tend to agree with you here, that subsidizing health care via insurance companies is silly - we should do it directly or not at all. Lets not forget, though, that it was structured this way, built off of republican policies, in an effort to compromise and cross the aisle. BUT I don't think that discussion is entirely relevant to this budget fight. For better or worse, the ACA is law, passed by both chambers of congress, the executive branch (duh) and supported by the supreme court. The president whose name it wears as a reclaimed slur was reelected by a substantial margin in the election following its success, and his party won more votes in house and senate elections (cumulatively), which I have to consider to signify public approval. Republican messaging on the issue is duplicitous at best, and it flies in the face of our system of government for a minority faction in the house to unilaterally cripple a law approved by all three branches and the public. I don't see this as congressional gridlock so much as an extremist wing defying our Constitutional process of governance and showing some disregard for the rule of law. The really absurd part is that this is the faction that claims to be champions of our Constitution.
ReplyDeleteI guess my little tirade there wasn't entirely relevant to your post, sorry, I just have been needing to vent that off. I just feel strongly that the time to improve upon and reform the ACA will have to come later, after tea party representatives stop threatening citizens and the economy to satisfy their own refusal to compromise or cooperate.
DeleteI think the shutdown is related enough to the ACA, since the one fueled the other. I would be very curious to find out of any of the procedures, maneuvers, or 'dirty tricks' used by either party (especially the GOP) in this particular battle could be litigated by a federal court for being a violation of the constitution, as you suggest.
DeleteUsually the judiciary is yielding and complicit when it comes to challenges as to whether or not what the other two branches want to do is constitutional, and that creates a huge hazard - i.e. the document being opened so broadly to interpretation as to have no real substance left. For me personally, as far as legislators and their bad behaviors, the house refusal to fund Obamacare and force a shut down is like the least of my worries.