How the Health Care Farce can be solved while humiliating Neoliberal Democrats and Republicans

Ndubuisi Okeh
Aug 27, 2017 · 11 min read

Congress as usual, for the past 7 years, has promptly shat the bed when it come to repealing the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare. President Trump has promised to Repeal and Replace Obamacare. Later after he won, he wanted to replace the bad parts of obama care and keep the good of obamacare. Instead the Republican Controlled Congress attempted to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something worse, much worse. Then at one point, wanted to shove unrelated tax cuts and cut medicaid expansions to low-income americans, thinking that they can easily get a job in this still shit economy.

Obviously this caused a lot of anger in the American public, even for Trump supporters who just want the mandatory coverage part repealed and keep the good of the ACA. This caused Congress not to pass the repeal bill.

With Congress unable to do a simple thing without making it worse for everyone except themselves. What is the next step? What is the real solution?

But first a history lesson: Why is healthcare so expensive in the United States? And why we are the only country that makes health care contingent on employment and income?

I’ll give you two obvious reasons for the first one: Knowledge and Technology. The former is that we have learned so much from medical advances in the last 100 years. Two is the technology. It’s true that the US has the best emergency care money can buy. But in reality: We have the best emergency health care money can buy! We can save anyone and everyone giving enough resources.

(But for basic health care, we are far behind the industrialized world. We are dead last, since 1993 to current year.)

As matter of fact, the focus on emergency room care, rather than preventive care is what is causing our health care costs to go high.

There’s a good reason why healthcare is free in the ER. There’s a law called Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, a law signed by Reagan barring hospitals from turning away patients on grounds of not having insurance or citizenship. With this law, they will stick you with the bill later if you don’t have insurance or US citizenship. That alone drives costs because other people have to pay for people who do not have health insurance because their job does not provide it, it’s shit or they’re a non-citizen

This is why you hear many stories about how aspirin costs 8 dollars a pill. Cost also rise because of charity care where they wipe out the debts of people who can’t afford ER bills If you have a ER trip in the private hospital however, you are fucked. Any wonder why the US has so many medical bankruptcies.

Then the HMOs. Many Americans are unaware that in the past, health care and health insurance was a non-profit concern, medical insurance agencies, hospitals, clinics, and doctors were originally service organizations. But to this day, health insurance is attached to your employment in the US.

That changed when the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 a law signed by Nixon for federal subsidies for HMOs. It was done as a personal favor his friend and campaign finance, Edgar Kaiser, then president and chairman of Kaiser-Permanente.

The HMO law was originally designed to be for non-profits. It was subverted when almost all HMOs gone public in the stock market. These so called non-profits have wall street investors and they are now accountable to shareholders. This leads them to one thing: Cut costs and raise profits.

When anti-healthcare reform activists scream about death panels, they already funding death panels — The salaries of insurance claims adjusters and executives.

Here’s a good list of deaths and serious cases of injuries by care denials by insurance companies.

Like car insurance companies, and home insurance companies, health insurance companies are not in the business of filing and approving claims. They are in the business to profit on the need for insurance.

Finally prescription drugs ads: The United States and New Zealand are the only countries that allow these ads. Do you know what is the difference between generic and brand name goods? Advertising. And the spamming of these ads are big business.

So what’s the solution to the health care farce. Obviously, the the solution is single-payer health insurance or all-payer health insurance which is implemented in France, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands. But sadly due to the political, cultural and psychological opposition to any form of universal health care unless you have income it will never happen, unless Democrats gets a veto proof majority in Congress.Which based on their mentality on profiting to lose, will not happen.

As a matter of fact this this opposition to any form of socialism healthcare that could benefit workers instead of dates back to 1920!

Workplace reformers such as I.M. Rubinow — a doctor, the head of the American Association for Labor Legislation, a Russian emigre and a socialist — wanted “compulsory”
sickness coverage that would pay for medical costs and disease prevention for all workers, modeled after similar plan staking hold in Europe. Economist Irving Fisher believed health insurance was necessary “to tide workers over the grave emergencies [and to] reduce illness itself.”

Such a system would “relieve poverty caused by sickness by distributing individual wage losses and medical costs through insurance.” (It’s a concern that, in America, has never fully been relieved — even today, unpaid medical bills are the №1 cause of U.S. bankruptcies,
outpacing credit-card bills or late mortgage payments.
) The argument that a health insurance system would yield a net savings for society “was meant to appeal to business,” wrote Paul Starr in the American Journal Of Public Health.“The model was what was happening in Europe, starting with [Prussian Chancellor Otto von] Bismarck in Germany,” said Theodore M. Brown,professor of history and medical humanities at Rochester University. But“the situation suddenly turned very,very negative.”

Businesses thought that compulsory health insurance would be too costly and would amount to a raise for every worker in America, and yet for all that expense — and in an era when preventive medicine was more about public health than individual patients — insurance “would not materially reduce the amount of sickness.” Politicians said a system of universal medical coverage would be identical to “German socialist insurance,” a grave insult in the late 1910s, now that America was at war with Kaiser Wilhelm II.Insurance companies and physicians weren’t on board, either. Doctors worried then, as now, that health insurers would have too much control over prices and practice methods; insurers worried that a system of “compulsory” health insurance would interfere with their lucrative life insurance business.

“That [proposed] legislation offended virtually every interest there was,” Ms.Thomasson said.In California, a 1918 ballot measure to create a statewide insurance program failed badly. By 1920, the concept of national, compulsory insurance was dead in Washington, D.C., and in most state capitols.

  • How did America end up with this health care system — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Then we have the “muh free market” solution:

  1. Get rid of Obamacare completely,
  2. Expect everyone to get a job (assuming every job has benefits and there are plenty of jobs available, which is in reality not true anymore)
  3. and rely everyone who can’t get jobs to get charity care.

Problem is that the job market is still shit despite naive people insisting that you can get a job instantly by walking into any employer. Plus, charity is overwhelmed and underfunded for the past 9 years, since the 2007 housing crunch. PETA, Sad puppy ads, and starving children charities for overseas get a lot more money, because they advertise their charities more than ones that meet than actual human needs. When was the last time you see a ad for SOME (So Others Might Eat, a DC based charity)?

A true free market solution would be the following:

  1. Abolish HHM/PPOs or prohibit them from being in the stock market
  2. Fully fund health clinics for those who can’t afford health insurance or unable to seek better work (27 million Americans)
  3. Abolish state monopolies
  4. Abolish Prescription Drug Ads
  5. Restrict Emergency Room Services to those who have US Citizenship, Permanent Residence, A Valid Visa, or a Bonafide Refugee.
  6. Keep the protections of ACA/Obamacare such as no rejecting customers who have pre-existing conditions

However, the insurance industry and the healthcare industry will scream bloody murder and will send legions of lobbyists to Congress and the White House to prevent that from happening. The mere thought of HMOs and Private Insurance Companies going non-profit will drive wall street insane.

But there is a compromise Trump is waiting to do: President Trump telegraphed it during a trip to Australia. President trump is sense said that he wants to have universal coverage for health care in the United States. He visited Australia and actually praised it’s healthcare program.What does australia have? Medicare. It provides basic health care and catastrophic care and for everything else: muh free market.

Don’t believe me: Read these articles:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/332036-trump-australia-has-better-healthcare-system http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/332223-sanders-trump-is-right-on-australian-healthcare-system http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/333485-what-trump-got-right-about-australian-healthcare

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/04/trump-praises-australias-universal-health-care-system-you-have-better-health-care-than-we-do/

The US has the same thing with medicare, but restricted to people 65 and up. The US can actually expand medicare to all. But Congress stands in the way: It’s full of Neolibs and Identitarian Democrats and Establishment Republicans. All President Trump needs to do is the clarity subsection (2) — Basically any person under 65 who would be normally qualified for medicare or SSD benefits for 24 months (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1395c)

The solution? The executive order

All Trump has to do is to figure out a way lower the eligibility age to 0 for US citizens and permanent residents. And voila: health care problem solved. And by extension he can implement his policies via EO piece by piece. Congress will naturally object and they will be settled in the courts. Trump expects this. This is how he will keep his promises. His own insurance policy in case Congress refuses to cooperate

The way has been paved in the Obamacare ruling of the supreme court. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, citied a 1895 precedent that “every ‘reasonable construction’ must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality” In plain english, precedent REQUIRES that the Supreme Court twist itself into “every reasonable” contortion in order to save a statute. In 2012, he was the deciding vote on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. Roberts called the ObamaCare penalty a tax. However congress is the only body that can levy a tax. Also, presidential executive orders are equivalent to laws, another word for “statute.”

The words of the constitution are to be taken in their obvious sense, and to have a reasonable construction. In Gibbons v. Ogden, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, wt h his usual felicity, said: ‘As men whose intentions require no concealment generally employ the words which most directly and aptly [158 U.S. 601, 619] EXPRESS THE IDEAS THEY INTEND TO CONVEY, the enlightened patriots who framed our constitution, and the people who adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their natural sense, and to have intended what they have said.’ 9 Wheat. 188. And in Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, where the question was whether a controversy between two states over the boundary between them was within the grant of judicial power, Mr. Justice Baldwin, speaking for the court, observed: ‘The solution of this question must necessarily depend on the words of the constitution, the meaning and intention of the convention which framed and proposed it for adoption and ratification to the conventions of the people of and in the several states, together with a reference to such sources of judicial information as are resorted to by all courts in construing statutes, and to which this court has always resorted in construing the constitution.’ 12 Pet. 721.

The whole ruling can be read via http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/158/601.html

If successful, the Democrats would be humiliated for not actually “resisting” and pulling identity politics bullshit. This with the actual free market ideas, will actually solve the healthcare crisis. And destroy the neoliberals with it.

But he can’t do that! But he can.

Other presidents have used E.Os to solve problems.

  1. Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery via Proclamation 95
  2. The Creation of FEMA via Presidential Reorganization Plan №3 of 1978 and Executive Order 12127
  3. The Manhattan Project, via Executive Order 8807, which created the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)
  4. The confiscation of gold coin, bullion, and certificates nationwide via 34 — Executive Order 6102
  5. Desegregation of the Armed Forces via Executive Order 9981
  6. The New Deal, parts of it still in force to this day.
  7. Creation of the Peace Corps via Executive Order 10924
  8. Creating equal opportunity in hiring for government jobs via executive Order 11478
  9. Requiring that the government do a cost-benefit analysis of each regulation via Executive Order 12866
  10. Creating the Department of Homeland Security via Executive Order 13228
  11. Creating the current American flag via Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated August 21, 1959, Executive Order 10834
  12. Desegregating public schools.via Executive Order 10730 — President put the Arkansas National Guard under Federal control and sent 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to assist them in restoring order in Little Rock, Arkansas
  13. The internment of Japanese-Americans via Executive Order 9066

One caveat, executive orders can not be made to create law but to clarify, existing legislation or to create agencies, departments, and directions to federal government officials, Obamacare is merely existing legislation. As long as Trump does not create laws in an executive order, he can modify part of obamacare until it effectively no long exist, leaving the good parts in and the effectively negating the bad ones.

And he can do the same tactic and strategy for each of the promises he listed in his “Contract to America” campaign platform

By doing so, it’s practically a message to Congress : “If you refuse to work with me and negotiate with me, I’ll solve these problems myself. And you’re not going to like how I’ll going to do it”

For those concerned that Trump will be viewed as dictator by using these executive orders, these executive orders can be challenged via the courts or via the Congress with a 2/3rd veto-proof vote. Sadly, with the political establishment angry that a non-establishment politician exist like him, they will call him a “dictator” and will push this angle as long as it takes.

But if he is successful in solving the health care farce, America definitely won’t get full-single player, but at least the country will have basic medical care and catastrophic care taken care of without charge if he chooses to do this. Americans will no longer be tied down to their jobs for health care. If successful it will effectively ending the concept health insurance being contingent on your employment, and will force Congress to implement actual health care reform similar to what Australia’s has.

Or they can keep doing everything to “resist” Trump while profiting from it.

— — —

If you like my article or any of the articles I’ve posted so far, please consider donating to the Free Jkid fund at: https://www.youcaring.com/jkid-801302 or pledging to my patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/Jkid

I have been supporting my unemployed parents as the sole breadwinner, with no government assistance for the past two years. I’ve been unable to pay off my student loan or credit card debt, or spend any money to improve my career or economic position. Now I have found out recently that my mom has a back problem and has osteoporosis which limits her employment options. If her conditions get worse, I will be forced into being a caretaker, which in my financial condition which will end any dreams or goals I want to fulfill. Taking care of my unemployed parents for the past two years has taken a toll on my financial and mental health, as well as my possible future.

Sadly, it’s much easier for a upper-middle class SJW or trustafarian to have their fundrasier fulfilled for their vanity projects to spend on themselves to trips to Europe while spending little on the project themselves. Any money that is sent will make my life and my family better and will allow me to focus on my political writings and my career instead of stressing over money or struggling to live without any government assistance.

Thank you for your consideration.

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