Newsflash: Corporations Love Profit

This morning I watched a video that was produced by Paul Ryan, yes the Paul Ryan whose budget proposal has started a firestorm of controversy in the political arena. Paul Ryan's budget proposal, among other things, suggests that the Medicare system should be changed in a drastic and fundamental way. Ryan proposes that we scrap the current system in which the government insures or at least regulates the health insurance that is provided to senior citizens and people on Social Security disability. In its place Ryan proposes a system in which seniors and those on Social Security disability would be given vouchers to use towards the purchase of health insurance that they would have to buy on the open market. Although no one has specifically outlined the value of these vouchers, the best understanding that I can arrive at places their value at approximately $15,000, leaving those who would have been on Medicare responsible for the balance between their $15,000 voucher and whatever the healthcare insurers would choose to charge them. A bit of quick mathematics tells us that Ryan proposes providing $1250 per month towards the healthcare costs for the seniors and people on Social Security disability.

In Ryan's video, he tried to re-frame the same proposal in a manner that would seem less of a threat to seniors and those on Social Security disability. It occurs to me that this is a bit like trying to make a great white shark appear less menacing. Recent rankings on the educational systems of world nations show that Americans are no longer among the brightest in the world. But what Mr. Ryan and other Republicans fail to grasp, is that Americans cannot yet accurately be called stupid. The first problem with Mr. Ryan's plan is the mathematics. His proposal neglects to take into account or simply disregards the question of what insurance companies are going to be rushing to provide health insurance for older Americans, and for those that do, how incredibly high might premiums be? Simply stated, insurance companies are in business to make money and providing health insurance to senior citizens and those who are disabled is not a lucrative business. In order to make such a proposition at least breakeven, the premium rates would have to be astronomically high. The mathematics suggests that a $15,000 voucher will not come near covering the cost of health care for these seniors and disabled people. Ryan's plan essentially leaves these people in a lurch.

But beyond the mathematics is a question which is much more critical. Are we going to keep our word? The US government entered into an "agreement" with these people, an agreement that left these people no choice whether to opt in or opt out. Money was forcibly taken from each paycheck with the promise that this money would secure a safe and affordable retirement. If we now go back on that promise, it will be as if the US government simply stole money from these people? Over the years we have gradually become a country of people who do not keep their word -- ever. Until death do us part is a 50-50 proposition. How many items have you bought because the sellers have offered guarantees? How many times have you tried to take advantage of the guarantee that was offered only to find that in some print too small for an ant to read, some conditions were set forth that could not possibly have been met. We guarantee that we will replace this big-screen TV, then comes the microscopic print, if you return it in the original container. Rebates are offered with a series of difficult hoops through which the consumer must jump in order to claim them. We are a country of people who are not to be trusted. Here, salesman will tell you any lie that is necessary in order to get you to buy the car. Very little remains in American society that might provide evidence to the claim that Americans can be trusted. Among the last of these things is Social Security and Medicare. These are promises that so far have remained unbroken.

In Ryan's video, he begins by offering data that shows that over the years the cost of healthcare has skyrocketed. He points out that because the cost of health care has skyrocketed and is expected to continue to do so, Medicare will soon reach the end of its funding. While Ryan's claims and his data may be correct, the flaw in his presentation is that this is where the problem begins. Ryan's position and that of the people who support it is that healthcare prices are out of control and we must accept that. There is a place where they definitely do not want this argument to go, and that place is Universal Healthcare. When I say Universal Healthcare, I am not speaking of the plan that was recently passed, that has been referred to as the Health Insurers Protection Act of 2010. This plan, simply stated, mandated that everyone purchase health insurance and set some regulations prohibiting some of the inscrutable business practices that health insurance providers currently engage in. When I say Universal Healthcare, I am talking about the sort of "Medicare for all" plan that Canada has. This plan would collect a tax, or fee, or surcharge or would everyone to call it from almost everyone and use that money to fund a national program in which all Americans would receive health care. For those who say can't be done many countries are already doing it. In fact I have read that the United States is one of very few industrialized nation that does not offer Universal Healthcare. If such a plan were adopted in the United States, much of the profit that exists in healthcare as a business would have to go away. And this is what Republicans are truly fighting to stop. They must be given credit; they are fighting to protect their true constituents -- the wealthy. The tremendous profit that would be lost in the course of ensuring that all Americans receive proper healthcare must be terrifying to those who currently make those profits. It must be almost as terrifying as the thought of a long slow death is to people who cannot afford the cost of healthcare.

I am currently reading a book titled Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book he talks about something he calls "a Warren Harding error". To paraphrase this is the sort of error that America made when they looked at a robust, handsome politician from Ohio and said, "he looks like a President." Americans did when Americans often do, they allowed their first impression, their visual information, become their only impression. They saw someone, they made a judgment based on his appearance, and they stopped their thinking there. America's "Warren Harding error" brought us one of the worst President's in history. We must not make "a Warren Harding error" here. I'm the first to admit that Paul Ryan is a handsome young man. He looks friendly and affable; he looks like the sort of fellow you can trust. But we must not let our first impression, our visual impression, become our last attempt a judgment. We must listen to his words and his ideas and understand exactly what he means to do. We must do this with all of our politicians. When a politician calls for sacrifice from you and tells you that the wealthy cannot be asked to sacrifice along with you because they need their tax breaks in order to stimulate United States job growth, you must look at statistics, and not the statistics that any given politician puts before you. You must do your homework and get your own statistics. In this Internet age is not difficult to go to the US Labor Department and look up the unemployment rate. Nor is it difficult to look up United States federal tax rates. If you do you will see that before the Bush tax cuts, the United States experienced a period of great job growth during the years preceding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. In fact, if you do this research you will see that the facts are quite a bit counterintuitive. We accept the Republican argument that tax cuts spawn job increases, but the historical data does not support this claim. The data suggests that tax cuts do not have a huge influence on job growth one way or another. Things like wars and revolutions in the ways that we do business (Industrial Revolution, Information Age) are the things that stimulate job growth.

If you think about it, this makes sense. The wealthy are wealthy because they know how to handle money. It would be imprudent to hire more workers or purchase more capital simply because you have more money. And wealthy people are wealthy because they are prudent. Businesses hire more workers when their demand calls for it. Businesses purchase more capital if purchasing more capital will and prove their profit margin. Haven't you ever noticed that when a company cuts back, perhaps with a large workforce reduction or some other cost cutting measures, that the value of their stock increases? The basic fallacy that Republicans have sold to the American people over the years is that corporations love you. Corporations love profit. This is why certain enterprises are not trusted to the free market. How might your world change if police protection were handled like healthcare with many private companies offering police protection at a price? Or fire protection, imagine that your house is burning and you pick up the phone and call the fire department. When they show up, before they leap off the trucks and spring into action they ask to see your fire insurance card. If you can't produce it, then they cannot help you. My point here is that some endeavors cannot be trusted to profit motive. Human health is one such endeavor. There is a large food chain that currently feeds on the healthcare needs of all Americans. The closest members of that food chain to we the people are the healthcare insurers. If they are removed from equation, the next logical step would be that the government, who would now be administering our healthcare much as they do are police and fire protection, would ask. "Why are these drug prices so high?" Then perhaps they might ask, "why is this medical equipment so expensive?" or "why is this Band-Aid $.47 in the grocery store, and $7.34 in the hospital?" With that, the entire food chain of profit-making would collapse. Yes, all Americans would have fair and decent healthcare, but what would become of the profit?