The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.
Bait and Switch
The Insurance company administered program pleases the Republicans, because the firms will benefit with subsidized premiums from the poor and forced premiums from the young and healthy.
The Democrats will love the universality of the program. Subsidizing health care adds more political power from the hands-stretched-out-for-mercy class. They will have essentially nationalized the insurance firms something they failed to do with the oil and gas industry, the toxic-asset banks, the stock market pirates and the mindless auto industry.
How could Obama "tame" the insurance industry so? Why would Republicans offer their co-operation at long last? The for profit insurance industry has a built-in 30% overhead to cover executive salaries, sales commissions, advertising expenses and many other items unrelated to health care delivery. It does not deliver health services or control costs.
The single payer system runs at a 4% overhead [rather than 30% for the for profit insurers]. The industry must mount a big campaign of bribery and false advertising, because they can not compete with the government-run programs. Without single payer or the public option, alternate programs will fail.
If the Republicans manage to pin the blame on Obama for this disaster, by 2012 he will be toast.
Universal Health Care May Fail Along with the USA, but the Dream Will Continue as Long as Human Beings Exist
From
South Boston to Jakarta, Indonesia, there are pictures of
the Kennedy brothers. Many appear within small shrines candles lit daily.
The universal dream is that, "My boy will be a better man than I ever
was."
The dream has nothing to do with religion and politics. It has everything to do
with parental love.
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