On Mon, 2009-08-31 at 13:24 -0400, Fred Feldman wrote: > And this is the heart of the QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE for working people, > including Blacks, Latinos, and the mass of women. Is this bill about > cutting costs or providing medical care? If it's about cutting costs, > working people and the oppressed will come out losers, as we always do > when the government "cuts costs" and we lose jobs, wages, education, > hospitals and so on and so on.
This bill has some progressive trimmings, but as Business Week has noted, the health insurance companies have "already won." http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/b4143034820260.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories "They have beaten us six ways to Sunday," said Gerald Shea of the AFL-CIO. "Any time we want to make a small change to provide cost relief, they find a way to make it more profitable." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-healthcare-insurers24-2009aug24,0,2392720.story The bills primary purpose is a bailout for the health insurance complex which has been hemorrhaging clients during this recession. Mandating purchase of for profit insurance is just what the doctor ordered for United Health et al. As for "cutting costs", since this bill is modeled after the Massachusetts plan which subsidizes private health insurance for low income people, there in not likely to be much savings. Any "public option" that comes out of it is likely to be a feeble thing, which will be so hobbled with restrictions that it will serve to discredit the notion of "socialized" insurance, rather than "lead to Single Payer." The point about Single Payer of course, is that administrative costs are greatly reduced. Canada's spending on health care is about 10 percent of GDP, as opposed to something like 16 percent for the US where millions have no insurance. Over 70 Single Payer resolutions have been proposed to the upcoming AFC-CIO convention, which I will be attending as an alternate delegate and Labor Campaign for Single payer SC member. Both on health care and EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act, labor has been stiff-armed by the Democrats. We are heading for some interesting times, I think. Jon Flanders ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
