Healthscare

by Dr. James Glenn | July 23, 2009

As Franklin Roosevelt observed seventy years ago, “our enemies of today are the forces of privilege and greed within our own borders.”

“America can always be counted on to do the right thing, once all the other alternatives have been exhausted.” Winston Churchill

Like most Americans, I’m concerned about my job, and my health care. In every other industrialized nation on earth citizens enjoy a caliber of care which is not only generally better, but much more cost effective, and free. We as a nation spend twice as much as any other, and yet still rank in the bottom quartiles for mortality and other health care bench marks. A recent World Health Organization report puts America’s health care and delivery in 37th place worldwide, right between Costa Rica and Slovenia. That’s not a typo. 37th place. What is wrong with this picture?

It never ceases to amaze me how seemingly intelligent people can so completely miss the boat on such simple matters as health care. A for profit system which is what we have, does not guarantee better care, or cheaper care, than single payer, or government. It does guarantee more expensive care. Shareholders and Wall Street demand a return on investment (ROI) while a government run system is non profit. A typical ROI for an insurer is 15- 20% per year. If you divide 15% into 72 (Rule of 72) it tells you that your money will double approximately every 5 years, i.e. 72/15%=5 years.

This simply tells you that to maintain their profit margins and ROI of 15% per year, for profit health care company’s double the cost of health care every five years, all other things being equal. It is just that simple. Profits. Big profits drive up premiums, premiums for shareholders and companies that could care less about my job, my health, or the cost of my premiums.

What these companies do care about is rationing care, denying you care whenever possible, and cutting you off for a “pre-existing” conditions etc. to maximize their bottom lines, and satisfy the capricious demands of Wall Street. A government run non profit alternative to our existing system would force them to lower profit margins because they could not deny coverage, cherry pick customers, deny coverage for pre existing conditions, etc., etc. This is what is driving the hysteria on the right about “socialist” medicine etc. The daily propaganda about “rationed” care, “inferior” care, or “more expensive” care is pumped out by the likes of Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter et. al., who like our Congress have excellent care, and will never have to worry a nano second about being sick. Our Congress already has a form of “socialist” healthcare. It’s called Medicare and Medicaid, the platinum plan. I’m not asking for anything more or less, than what they already enjoy, on my tax dollars.

The vapid, usually banal banter on the health care debate emanating from the right who are paid for lock, stock, and barrel by the insurance, health care, and pharmaceutical industries, borders on hysteria as noted earlier. It reminds me of that Shakespeare line, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Your care will be rationed, the strident, shrill, scream goes out to the faithful from the Fox minarets across the land!! Do you want a government bureaucrat telling you who you can see!! Do you want your health care rationed!!

Tell me, do we not have insurance bureaucrats telling us now what we can and cannot do, and rationing our care? At 5-10 times the cost of the alternatives? And standing between us and our doctors? Of course we do.

Approximately 15-35 cents of every health care dollar now goes to “administration”, a euphemism for profit. Simple. Medicare does the same job for 4 cents on the dollar. It’s a matter of public record friends. Yes, there are many things government can do better than business, and that only government can, or should do. Leaving something as vital as your health to companies only concerned about their bottom line is as insane as…..well….as insane as privatizing social security, and leaving your hard earned FICA dollars in the hands of the thieves in the brokerage and banking sector.

The nonsense promulgated by the right over the last 3 decades that profits are a panacea for all that ails us, that the “invisible hand” always allocates resources better than alternatives, and that all industries should be deregulated is malarkey, as the latest and greatest Wall Street fiasco demonstrates. We as a nation cannot afford to provide the health care industry with annualized profits of 10—20% year after year. It is not sustainable, as every other nation on earth has figured out. Any more than we can afford to allow the banking and financial sectors to run amok with no regulation, or the military industrial complex to create one endless war after the other to provide the major shareholders of Halliburton and the Carlyle Group with obscene profits. Profits piled high on the corpses of those denied coverage, and innocent civilians.

As Roosevelt so presciently pointed out 80 years ago, our enemies are right here next to us, devouring our country from the inside out. And how clever was Bin Laden? He knew that these radical right elements in our country would seize on 9/11 to tighten their grip even tighter, and through fear, turn us even more into a nation of special interests, exacerbating class warfare, and bankrupting the nation. Wall Street, the military industrial complex, Big Pharma, and K. Street are all at that tax teat in DC, drunk on the milk of your tax dollars my friends. There is big money to be made…or lost, on this health care bill. We don’t hear those oh so fiscally responsible Republicans screaming about the 2 trillion (and counting) dollar war in Iraq, or the 5-8 trillion (depending on whom you believe) spent in bailing out AIG and and their buddies on Wall Street, do we? It would be laughable if it were not so sad. The hypocrisy that is.

Given the opportunity, who would you want providing your health care? A government, not for profit similar to what our veterans and Congressmen enjoy, or a system run by private insurers only concerned about their bottom line? The answer is obvious which is why the right is so shrill, screaming from every Fox minaret in the land…..”Your care will be rationed, your care will be more expensive, your care will be inferior etc., etc. I don’t think so friends. If government can’t do anything right what are they so afraid of? I ask you? Goebles said that if you told a population something long enough they would eventually believe it. As Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, he should have known. Do not listen to the corporatist’s friends, or their lackeys on Fox and nearly every AM station in the land. Their arguments are as hollow as their ideology, as bankrupt as our nation.

The right wing likes to assuage their collective guilt and greed by hiding behind the “invisible hand”, and the “free markets”, neither of which have existed in this nation in health care, financial services, communications, and many other industries for a generation. What we do have now is a collection of oligopolies doing their best to gouge us at every turn, whether its your local bank, healthcare provider, or internet service provider.

Yesterday I got into an argument with a hard right winger who started throwing names at me like “socialist” because he had no facts, or truth at his disposal to throw at me. Petulant and childish come to mind. The right always resorts to name calling when they’re losing an argument. “If you’re such a believer in capitalism, tell me what’s wrong with private health insurance.” I replied, “It’s wrong precisely because private industry, has shown time and again, that they are so good at ensuring that their major stakeholders, management and shareholders, will get the lions share of anything they produce. They have shown time and again, that if left unregulated, they will pollute, deceive, connive, obfuscate, demonize, and destroy anything in the way of their profits.” That of course would include you and me friends. Profits, very simply, is what is behind the latest round of scare tactics we hear daily from CNBC, FOX, and the right wing press and bloggers.

I went on. “The things we share as a “commons” as Thom Hartman would say, natural monopolies (utilities), water, air, transportation infrastructure, and yes, health, money (banking), and education (vital to our competitive positioning as a nation), must either be run not for profit, or be very tightly regulated, and available as a right to every citizen. Left unchecked, with no adult supervision, industry through it’s money, and power, will always destroy Democracy in its relentless obsession on the bottom line and maximizing profits, at our expense of course.

As indeed it has, as witnessed by the recent Wall Street/banking fiasco which has left us another 8 trillion dollars in debt.” I continued, “There is nothing inherently “evil” in capitalism, anymore than in Islam, or Christianity. The genius of capitalism is its appeal to the profit motive, and the greed/need in all of us to better our circumstances for ourselves, and our loved ones. The problem of course is that left unrestrained, and untrained, pure capitalism, and “free” markets, will always trump Democracy. The question is simple. Do you want to live in a true Democracy, or a fascist state? We have not had anything approximating capitalism in this country in a generation, and now we have major corporations routinely writing public policy, whether you look at the bankruptcy bill, the energy bill, the education bill, and now, the health care bill. Until we get big business out of our politics, and a Republican Party that will stop being the party of “no”, we will never have anything close to a Democracy, and will be little more than wage slaves to the corpotocracy, and its minions.”

I believe in capitalism, but as I have written for decades, the profit motive, and free markets are not a panacea. They often have to be saved from themselves if they are to survive. Now is such a time, and those in financial services and real estate, hopefully will be bright enough to see the wisdom in that.

A parable about the turtle and the scorpion is illustrative. A scorpion comes to a river bank and needs a ride across. A turtle nearby says, “I’ll give you a ride if you promise not to sting me.” The scorpion says, “I promise, I won’t sting you.” Once across the river safely on the other side however the scorpion promptly stings the turtle in the neck. As he lay dying the turtle looks at the scorpion incredulously and asks, “Why did you sting me?” The scorpion calmly responded, “Because its my nature.”

The nature of capitalism friends is to put profits before everything else, and maximize shareholder value. This is the essence of its genius, and its shortcomings. It, like most things, is a two edged sword. The inventor of nuclear fusion never believed it would be used to annihilate populations, any more than Christ believed Christianity would lead to the inquisition. If we recognized this dual nature of capitalism as a nation then we would (and have in the past) take appropriate steps to ensure that it worked for all of us, not just special interests, and a select few. Left unregulated, it will destroy itself, from the inside out. We are not far from that point now. Is that we want?

How do you think they do things in the for profit healthcare industry? Do you honestly believe they “maximize shareholder value” by giving you better, more extensive, and more affordable care? Don’t be saps. Did you just fall off a turnip truck? Do you really believe that’s what our present system delivers to the majority? Let’s not get stung again friends. Unregulated capitalism is a scorpion. How many times do we take it for a ride? Can you be so cavalier about your health, and something as vital to our national security as the health of our citizens?

Can we stop the obfuscation, and misdirection for one second defenders of the status quo? The plain truth is you don’t want to have to pay for the health care bill. Simple. And I know, God forbid you should pay higher taxes! Do you think I enjoy paying taxes for an Office of Faith Based Initiatives in the White House? For aircraft carriers, rocket launchers, and claymore mines? For a redundant, and bloated military that consumes now 700 billion a year or 30% of our budget?.................For the shenanigans and thieves on Wall Street? Taxes are the freight we pay for living in a civil society, and we seldom get a say in how they’re spent. You lost people. Get over it. And as I heard for decades from your lips, if you don’t like it, leave. Stop vilifying me, and millions like me for wanting a system we can rely on when we get sick. What is wrong with you people? Read the report friends. Our system is not even close to #1. 37th in the world, right between Slovenia and Costa Rica. I ask you friends, where would you prefer to be? Slovenia or France? The choice is yours.

The honest truth is, defenders of this current privately owned and operated abomination believe in profits before people, and are too selfish to get beyond their own parochial interests. To think collectively instead of about me, me, me. Simple friends. Do you want to live in a me society, or a we society? Do you want health care more like France, or Slovenia? We’ll find out shortly. Stay tuned. Good night friends. Jim

Hello: My name is James Glenn and I am delighted to be working with you all. I grew up in Washington DC, and attended American University where I obtained a BSBA in Finance with a minor in marketing. I have thirty years broad based experience in business development, brokerage, banking, commercial lending/underwriting, credit analysis, management, public relations, relationship selling, valuation and investment consulting and most recently, teaching. I have developed over the years exceptional researching, and writing ability, and superior spreadsheet and computer skills, and hope to bring some of these skill sets to bear in this course.

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