At this point, there is a mysterious “agreement” between Senator Baucus, the White House, and hospitals. The fact that so little is known about a plan from someone who has historically been against any real public option is, in my opinion, suspicious. Since health insurance reform is the big topic for Congress this week, the timing is interesting to say the least.
Remember last week I said that Wal-Mart supporting an employer insurance mandate was suspicious? Well Greg Swann figured it out: an employer mandate for health insurance makes it harder for small businesses to compete with the behemoth. Small businesses are already being crushed under the cost of health care, being driven out of business at a time when our country desperately needs the innovation and jobs that entrepreneurs create.
Senator Schumer — wearing a green tie I might point out — says there will be “some sort” of public option available, but others point out it may be so hard to get into that it may as well not exist.
Thankfully, various groups are keeping pressure on the elected officials who have forgotten that they need our votes as much as industry’s money. They are continuing to pound despite friendly requests to shut the **** up by the Obama Administration.
There are a lot of problems with employer mandated coverage — or simply, mandatory coverage as I have called it for some years. The first problem is that coverage being purchased by employers is the root cause of our current mess! If costs hadn’t been invisible to Joe and Jane Average, change would have been forced years ago.
The second problem is that “we’ll pass a law making employers buy it” doesn’t solve the fact that coverage is too expensive for most small businesses. Fine them all you like, you’ll just put more small businesses — that our economy desperately needs — out of business. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and say that while the banking crisis (caused in part by the foreclosure mess) is the first cause of our current economic woes, the health insurance crisis is the clear second cause. Not only are we spending too much of our GDP on too little care for too few people, it’s making it almost impossible for entrepreneurship to lead us out of this mess.
How does that work, you may ask. It works because small businesses can’t afford to hire the people they need, because the people they need require quality coverage. And unfortunately, Senator Grassley was both tone-deaf and correct when he pointed out that the best way to get good coverage was to get a job with a big company like Deere or the United States Government. If our economy is to be run by a few hundred large companies, that’s viable. However, our economy runs on innovation and growth of small business.
And I haven’t even mentioned the third and most tragic problem with mandatory insurance: children don’t have employers.
However, instead of trying to put together a plan that is what the American people want, we are still hearing scare stories about Canadians — but oddly enough not the French — falling through the cracks (apparently none of these people have tried to make an appointment with a gynecologist lately, that will be 6-8 weeks minimum, dear), we are still arguing about what needs to be done, and we have somehow or another turned this most important issue into an argument about abortion. Sorry, wingnuts, there are still situations where women — as in wives and mothers — will die — as in become dead and not living anymore — without an abortion. The very idea that life-saving surgery shouldn’t be covered is a travesty. Stuff that in your so-called-pro-life pipe and smoke it.
Tell your Senators and your Congressman. Tell the President too. We need a public option, we don’t need mandated coverage, and we can afford Medicare For All. Heck, I don’t think we can afford not to have a public option that is open to everyone. If it drives our overpriced, for profit health insurance companies out of business, oh well. America’s children certainly can’t afford to maintain the status quo. Remind your elected officials that insurance companies, drug companies, and hospital groups don’t vote, but we do vote.
In Closing: I love this sign; most “crazy cat ladies” don’t have cheetahs, lions, and tigers (no bears, oh my); bank failures week by week (Friday and more takeovers will be here before you know it); speaking of which, why aren’t the Canadian banks having a crisis?; urban farming; more on modern victory gardens; h/t to Susie, real unemployment — when you count everybody instead of just the people taking an unemployment check — is up to 18.7% (um yeah, what was that people were saying about how you can’t possibly compare this to the Great Depression?); h/t to John, could you pass the Citizenship Test (yes, 95%, and congrats to a certain client of mine who recently passed it!!!); thank [diety], the possible end of “too big to fail”; Bank of America makes a mistake, resulting in them banning a customer for life because he had an “irregularity” in his accounts; and not the way you want to meet.
Sorry taking so long to post. It’s been nuts, and I hope to develop a more regular schedule.