Republican (GOP) proposals on healthcare, Social Security abuse, World Trade Organization (WTO) deals are in bad faith. They would hijack future policies and make it, and WTO deals, Irreversible.
This can be shown easily by the nature of their proposals and especially their failure to disclose their irreversible effects. The ability to ever have affordable single payer healthcare, or have our current retirement savings protected (e.g. Social Security) protected from the negative effects of privatized commercial services that are the function of government.
GOP honing in immediately on the most destructive possible proposals have the stink of a deliberate attack on government services. The GOP is attempting to wage a class war on the people of this country, a class war for the very wealthy of the nation, and an attack on our nation successfully navigating the job-sparse future.
On healthcare the WTO changes contemplated will block any future chances of public healthcare. A country would not be allowed to have both public and private healthcare, according to the WTO's own authoritative explanations staff on the proposed deals. Under the terms of the WTO proposal measures of any kind, meaning all laws or actions, could not be "burdensome" on private firms being able to compete with providing public services. This traps us into using only private firms and likely soon.
Foreign trade agreements would prevent solutions to all of our health care problems, instead of getting rid of the hugely wasteful for-profit market. New regulations of any kind, as well as the entire Affordable Care Act (i.e. ACA or "Obamacare") would be found to be WTO violations subject to an easy challenge. Existing public programs, such as ACA, could be rolled back. The state of Maine's expert on trade came to similar conclusions.
The lack of a foreign trade presence in US health insurance up until now meant that no country had "standing" to challenge their exclusion unless they called for a WTO vote. This will all change when insurance companies are allowed to sell healthcare policies nationally, instead of restricted to state lines as they are now. This has been a long standing request to the WTO, by the EU and other US insurance companies.
This will all be bad news for poor sick people. What we will end up with is a new lower tier that requires foreign involvement. Poorly insured patients could be shipped to foreign healthcare facilities, the setting up of lower tier healthcare with foreign workers providing needs. WTO to further "protect" intellectual property would eliminate many lower cost healthcare products such as lower cost generic drugs.
Foreign ("free") trade under the WTO could change insurance radically due to a requirement which will kick in to roll regulations back to an arbitrary "standstill date" now set to be February 26, 1998 or January 1, 1995. As explained later about proposed "carve-outs".
We need to dump the "stand-still" and "carve outs, which are in the WTO "Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services". We also need to prevent new ones proposed so-called "free trade" agreements such as the Trade in Services Agreement, Trans Pacific Trade Agreement (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Most importantly, the public needs to realize that until this deal could cause major financial liabilities to the USA, which would have to be paid for in higher future taxes. Huge liabilities to the US could be triggered by laws as simple changes in health insurance regulations.
Similar bizarre requirements will likely strip Social Security of its protections, should it be privatized even to the smallest amount. Similar changes could eliminate affordable health care for veterans, because once we lose protections from trade agreements, government services of any kind are considered anti-trade "theft from corporate profits. The trade agreement changes could dovetail with successful challenges on the use of numerical quotas on US work visas, and allowing large numbers of low-wage skilled professional workers enter the US. Such visa agreements already exist in some qualifying firms in specified service sectors, such as health insurance and hospitals.
There is a huge level of dishonesty and a lack of transparency about these trade deals and all subjects which might lead to any kind of intelligent national dialogue. The promise of "easy money" for corporations by "free-trade" deals will destroy lives behind. That explains why the public has not been informed about these deals, the deals have been classified "secret" in an effort "to privatize everything, as Ellen Gould once put it , is a prime motivator behind more than just the campaign rhetoric. More information on lock-in can also be found here .
1
1
1
