Well, that didn’t take long

I saw a commercial about the ACA being a tax increase today.  The entire commercial was nothing but lies.  Can’t say I’m surprised.  I’m disappointed that politics is like this, and concerned that people will believe this nonsense, but I’m not surprised.

A few things about the SCOTUS decision on the Affordable Care Act

I have to admit that I was surprised at the voting, but I shouldn’t have been.  I know that there was opposition to what was essentially a Republican idea just because a Democrat got it passed, so I understood why people were against it.  But this law supports private insurance companies over everything else so I expected it to be upheld because it matched the interests of corporate power.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised that the law was upheld or by some of the voting.

I think that Roberts’ opinion is a little convoluted but does match the intent of the law – which Congress was too chickenshit to explicitly spell out.  I also think that the minority opinion was ridiculous on at least two points.  For one thing, it stated that there were two key provisions that, had they been left out, the law never would have been passed so if they were struck down then the entire law must be struck down.  Great mind reading act there to begin with, but that’s like saying because I changed my shirt I have to take off all of my other clothes.

The other thing was to say that this law prevents Congress from attacking the health care issues the country faces in the future except in piecemeal fashion because this law gets in the way.  Politically that may have some truth to it – legally it’s just nonsense.  All the next law has to say is that it overturns all of this law.

This decision is mostly a good thing, even if the law itself didn’t go far enough.  It doesn’t foster socialism and never has.  The mandate doesn’t cost anyone anything unless they voluntarily comply because the law specifies that there will be no enforcement of the penalty.  And this law has already helped people, will continue to do so and will help more people in the future.

I still think we need to make this better.

Now, even though the law specifically says that the penalty can not be enforced, how long will it be before we see the campaign commercials about this being a new tax?

I’m tired of the games

The Following Is a Political Rant on Health Care – consider yourself warned

I don’t want to hear anyone – President, administration personnel or member of either chamber of Congress – say anything about health care reform unless they are saying that the bill they are proposing guarantees health care for every citizen of the United States.

That’s it. No convoluted plans, no compromises. Every person in this country deserves health care as a fundamental right. It’s embarrassing that we have the most expensive but least effective coverage of the world’s leading industrialized countries (and some of the poorest counltries). Think about it: a foreign army threatens, sure we’ll save you; your house is burning down, sure we’ll put it out; someone is burgling your house, the police will be right there; you’re dying of a curable disease but can’t afford the treatment, sorry, maybe we’ll send flowers. Who does that make sense to?

I want the minimum level of care tied to what members of Congress get (which is paid for by our tax dollars). In other words, no member of Congress or their family can have better coverage than the lowest level of coverage available to an average citizen. Guaranteed, birth to death.

If we must maintain the for-profit health insurance model, then every American should get a subsidy to pay for insurance. I don’t give a damn if insurance company executives can’t make millions, we are talking about peoples’ lives here. This affects health and emotional and financial security. The fact that any citizen of the United States must choose between food and prescriptions, or rent and a doctor visit, is obscene.

Don’t bother telling me that we can’t afford to have a government bureaucrat making decisions about our health care. For one thing, it seems to be fine to have this done for people on Medicare or Medicaid and for veterans – you know, the people who put their lives on the line for us. For another, I have insurance company bureaucrats who personally profit from denying benefits making those decisions now so how would it be worse?

And stop throwing out lame ideas like taxing benefits or taxing sugar and tobacco to pay for this. Raise the marginal rates on income over $500,000. Tax stock transactions, say $0.25 per transfer, to pay for the bailouts to recover that money. Fuck the hedge fund managers and tax their income as income, not as capital gains. Why someone earning billions pays 15% tax and someone earning $50k has to pay 22% is beyond me. And the effective rate on corporations in this country is 0%, how about we make that more equitable so the average citizen doesn’t have to pay for everything?

Any plan to further cut Medicare and Medicaid is also outrageous. Medicare administration has already been farmed out to private companies. That’s tax dollars from a non-profit government agency being funneled to third party administrators. An additional layer of unnecessary administration has been added whose only job is to cut benefits so they can show a profit. That is criminal.

Don’t forget, we already subsidize healthcare. For every emergency room visit that can’t be paid for, for every indigent care case, for every person without health insurance, the insurance premiums and hospital fees are pushed up to cover the loss.

Yes, I am bitter and royally pissed. Everyone in Washington is playing political games with this. This is much more than a political power play. This is a game that affects peoples’ lives. To fight against health care is to support insurance company policy that harms lives and has lead to deaths. All for the sake of profit.

Also, please remember that the network of Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans were originally not for profit, and they made tons of money and the executives made huge salaries.

All that we have now is a system of for-profit insurance that can be arbitrarily cancelled and emergency rooms nationwide that are strained to the breaking point, with many closing and leaving the community they served with no place to turn for help. To believe that this constitutes a working health care system is delusional or at best wishful thinking.

We need change – now where have I heard that hollow statement before? We need it now. This is a moral imperative. People are suffering and dying because of our collective actions. I don’t know what to do beyond this here and annoying my Congress critters, which I do routinely. Any suggestions?

One more thing: health insurance is not health care. The current conversation is focused on insurance and forgets the people who need care.