Explain this to me.

I wrote someone today a short note. The reason I wrote them a note was because I’ve been hearing this argument lately and it just doesn’t jibe with what I’m seeing.

So, I haven’t heard back from the person I sent the note to but, if anyone out there can chime in and answer the question I would greatly appreciate their input.

Now, before we start this discussion bear in mind I am a registered Republican although I have never voted for GW Bush and have been distinctly unhappy with the actions and policies of the Bush administration in regards to domestic and economic policy. The wild spending as well as the ever increasing deficit just seems wildly irresponsible especially in light of where our economy was when Georgie Jr. took office.

So looking forward to the election in November, I keep thinking that continuing the policies of the last eight years is beyond stupid for our nation, it actually will put our nation in peril and set us on the road to irrelevance. We will certainly be a fading power if our economy is in ruins and everything that has been done over the last eight years has bought us further along that path.

Now, the tenant I keep hearing from Republicans (and Conservatives) is that government, specifically the Federal government needs to get ‘out of the way’ of business if our economy is to flourish. I keep hearing how our government should not be involved in the marketplace and that regulation or interference on the part of the government is detrimental to the future of our country as a whole.

So, when we get into discussions about Universal Health Care, the big argument is that the Federal government will mismanage the business of health care and that we will all pay a price for it.

Thing is, here I am paying astronomical insurance premiums, totally absent any kind of dental care and I live in fear of the day possibly coming when I won’t be able to make those payments and wind up losing my insurance. The other thing I think about is that disease as it were does not discriminate. Disease doesn’t look at someone’s checkbook or status or income level when it decides to strike. We all benefit by having a nation with a healthy populace because it keeps the incidence of disease lower and over the longer period of time prevents certain diseases from regaining a foothold among the ‘herd’ as it were.

I don’t ascribe this view to any kind of noble sentiment other than realistic self preservation. Yeah, you can think you’re a lord of the universe with the nice corner office and all that but if the below minimum wage cleaning guy has picked up a nasty strain of TB and winds up coughing all over your office while he’s vacuuming your excellent Medical Plan isn’t going to save you from several months of hell or worse.

Common sense people, common sense.

So, like I said... there are a lot of people (Republicans) who talk to me about these social programs and think that they are non starters. You know the whole ‘Big Government’ is bad thing.

Every time this discussion comes up I think about the airlines, or the phone company or the electric company or all those vital industries that the government at one time regulated and then stepped aside because they said market forces would mean better service and lower prices for all Americans.

Have you flown lately?

Kind of like a bus with wings? I keep waiting for goats and chickens to wind up on the plane with me like one of those clichéd buses in a third world country.

Liking those blackouts, are we?

Am I the only one who keeps hearing about the power infrastructure being inadequate to meet the needs of our nation?

See, maybe I’m unique.

I don’t think government should be in everything but, there are certain industries and aspects of daily life where I think government should take a role in insuring that there is a certain low water mark for all of us and that it remains higher than it would be if we let those ‘market forces’ have free reign.

Here’s the rub too... the very same people who are telling me that government needs to get out of the way of business? They don’t seem to think it’s such a bad thing when government comes in and bails out some major corporation that has fallen victim to mismanagement or plundering...

So, in a lot of ways my thinking hasn’t changed on this. I still feel that government needs to provide a framework for business. Over-regulation though isn’t the answer.

There are people who feel the government should be involved in every little aspect of our lives and honestly I don’t see that as being all that good. The problem  I have with that is that it starts from the assumption that government as an entity is never wrong and that’s simply not the case because government is made up of people and people are not perfect.

While we live in a Capitalistic society, we should not allow Capitalism to run amok as it were.

What winds up happening if we were to take such a laissez faire approach to society is that we would see rampant abuses of the environment, the people and a whole host of other faults that would impact us all negatively.

So, framework and here I say we should err on the side of less rather than more taking cues from when things go awry to act and put a stop to such verring off course.

In the whole medical debate we have going on in the country there are things we just never talk about at all in this discussion and that’s mainly because we have very strong lobbies across the country working against our collective interests. It’s that as well as the fact we are something in a sense of denial about medicine in general.

 

The biggest things standing in the way of competent, affordable and comprehensive medical care in our nation number three. They are as follows:

 

1. Insurance companies.

2. Drug manufacturers.

3. Lawyers.

Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up...

Lawyers.

The biggest problem underlying all of this is that our nation has a political class that is comprised of a lot of lawyers. There’s a reason for all those lawyer jokes but of course there’s nothing like having a really good lawyer on your side when you need one.

 

We have never capped damages for malpractice suits or any kind of award and in our country that’s to our collective detriment. Thing is we have a political class that is made up of lawyers so I don’t imagine that will change anytime soon. It’s akin to the fox guarding the henhouse if you will - lawyers in a position where they will regulate and limit the amount of money other lawyers make.

Until we have tort reform you can forget about any real change and as long as we are a nation of lazy voters who keep pushing incumbents back to Washington without putting term limits in place we can expect little change anytime soon.

Drug manufacturers.

Covid proved one thing in regard to drug manufacturers... you give them enough money and they can move mountains. The good thing about the previous President is that he recognized that private enterprise would make things happen faster if a bunch of money was thrown at them as opposed to waiting around for the government itself to come up with a solution.

We have gotten SEVERAL vaccines in record time for Covid as a result of Operation Warp Speed and as much as some people would hate to admit it, that ain’t Biden at all, that’s all Trump. Biden benefited from all the heavy lifting the previous administration did. I feel certain had a Democrat been in the Oval Office, a vaccine would still be two years away. They set aside restrictions to make everything happen faster and it was a good thing they did.

It showed all of us though that drug companies love money, no surprise there. The problem really is when they use taxpayer dollars for research and the American taxpayer doesn’t get the benefit in pricing. The other thing is slightly modifying a drug so they can continue to charge an arm and a leg for it (ask anyone who has diabetes about that). That needs to stop because other nations show us that they cap what drug companies can make and they can still make a healthy profit.

We saw what happened with the Epi-Pen and we need to put laws into place that stop such abuse but again, those crafty lawyers who are part of our political class and who receive scads of money from the drug lobby aren’t going to do anything for any of us soon. Especially not when they have much better health care than the rest of us do, so the joke is on you America.

Insurance companies.

Has there ever been an insurance company that HASN’T made money? Insurance is one of the biggest confidence scams going because insurers tell you that you need insurance but then when you want to use it they fight tooth and nail to keep from paying out on it.

Here’s the perfect storm that assures insurance companies that they always make a profit... they increase premiums on doctors on their malpractice premiums so it costs doctors more to run their practice while at the same time insurers dictate to the doctors exactly what they can charge! Then you pay for insurance and they do the same thing to you on your claims whether it be for drugs or procedures which all have to be preapproved to slow things down and of course it’s better to deny it at first to run out the clock and hope that someone won’t even bother to appeal an insurance companies decision.

I’ve seen it happen again and again and again...

Everything above is fixable and readily so but there’s just too much money to be made for the people making it to change anything anytime soon.