I like this little passage from The New York Times regarding Obama's intentions for health care reform:
"The idea, he has said, was to “keep the private sector honest” and hold down costs by injecting more competition into the system. Insurers balked, saying it would put them out of business. Conservatives called Mr. Obama a socialist. "
The juxtaposition is the newspaper's, of course, but it points to the self-contradiction in the Conservative camp:
How can a more competitive marketplace for health insurance possibly be described as "socialist"? And does it not come down to their puppeteers - the corporate lobbyists - simply not wanting to let go of their ability to rip people off?
I've seen this on a local level in my hometown QM. It's cheaper and far more efficient to grease legislators palms through donations, or attack ads, than to be forced to compete with somebody with fresh ideas and energy.
ReplyDeleteI hope things are done differently in you Country.
There is extensive regulation to encourage competition and punish cartel behaviour, but corporatism thrives on secret dealing, so it's hard to know for sure.
ReplyDelete"How can a more competitive marketplace for health insurance possibly be described as "socialist"
ReplyDeleteSimple. Those saying it are the same people who have trouble making a differentiation between communism, fascism and socialism.
It’s the fear of job loss embedded in the American psyche, the ignorance of those who haven’t explored anything beyond their comfort zone and it’s the institution that capitalizes on those fears and that ignorance.
This has a lot to do with our discussion of the educational system in the U.S. – line up, comply, present the required production in the allotted times and in expected quantities, even at the risk of doing so in mediocrity. Learn that mediocrity is acceptable. Learn that the end result of education is for the advancement of corporate America and the GDP rather than the advancement of humanity.
The masses of America are content with anything, as long as it doesn’t impact the “middle class” negatively. The middle class is content with mediocrity because they’re called “middle class” by the politicians and since they can afford the toys they want and can consume beyond reason, they must be important. The trick is making sure far more people think they’re middle class than holds true. The trick is to make sure they’re complacent.
Our history of civil liberties owes its snail’s pace progress to the complacency of the middle class. As long as mediocrity is comfortable, that group who loves to call themselves the middle class is very happy with it.
Magpie. I’ve hoped for eight long, corrupt, frustrating and embarrassing years that we would find a person that could make positive inroads in our political system. The sad thing is Obama represents that pendulum swing back to moderate politics, but our system is so corrupt and bankrupt, even those in his own “backyard,” now the majority of our political system, are fighting against him.
I’m terrified that Corporate America has gone well past the point of no return in its corruption of our political system. Those puppet strings are so well entrenched that it all seems, to the mainstream politicians, to be the natural way things should be. It’s been so long since honesty and interest in the welfare of the country has been the focal point in American politics that the idea of the welfare of the citizens has become a foreign concept.
Hell human welfare can’t even take a seat far in rear of the bus, in fact we can no longer even ride inside the bus. If we’re lucky, our interests might hitch a ride on the bumper to cushion the bus against collisions.
I truly fear for America and due to America’s heavy-handed influence in the neighborhood of the world, the world will suffer along with America when our system crumbles into oblivion and the elitists walk away fat and happy to their personal islands or mountains.
OPEC and the South American drug cartells have learned well from our examples of corrupting governments.