Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology. Comment policy: say what you want, but back it up with an email address. I don't like anonymous trolls.
Karen Tumulty was on a press call with the HELP committee to hear about Kennedy's bill, and she just posted a tweet with the following...Senate HELP bill: If u hate ur employer's coverage, u have to keep it, unless it costs 12.5% of ur salary. No public plan 4 u.Looks like you were right ML - anyone above a certain income level is f*cked with this new reform bill. It's Mass-Care all over again :(
Admittedly, this is a Tweet, but, if true, this sucks. I hate Romneycare. Yes, it led to a one-time reduction of about ten percent in healthcare costs, but since then, costs have spiraled out of control like they have everywhere else. It forces everyone to give his or her money to a private company (frankly, I would rather give my money to Hooters than insuranc companies). Without a public option--that is, a real choice to join a government administered plan that can compete with private industry--healthcare costs, not to mention what will be reimbursed, will still suck.
Again, if my parents can pay for Medicare, why can't I pay for something similar if I so choose? There's no reason why healthcare must be privatized.
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Of course there is [1]. For at least 60 years, major American corporations have been guaranteed a slice of the bottomless wealth of the American public. Whether it was planned obsolescence, the IRS policy of requiring taxpayers to pay a third party to file electronically, or any of thousands of State-chartered monopolies and oligolopolies -- there's rents to be extracted and fortunes to be made.
Health care is one-sixth of the US economy. A third of that goes into the operational overhead of private insurance. That's 5% of the US GDP that would go away if a real public plan were available, and if you think the financial meltdown last year was bad just watch what happens when that river of money to Aetna and the rest dries up.
[1] You didn't say a good reason.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | July 6, 2009 6:50 PM
"Rents to be extracted" -- Exactly.
http://www.correntewire.com/will_stirling_newberry_please_pick_white_courtesy_phone_we_have_question_rents#comment-137263
Posted by: lambert strether | July 6, 2009 7:55 PM