Healthcare Cost Fix

"If you think healthcare is expensive now,wait until it's free" -- P.J. O'Rourke

In my lifetime healthcare costs have gone up dramatically ... and pundits have proffered multiple solutions for this problem. To this observer, the reason for this inflation seems obvious -- the insertion of intermediaries in the providing of medical care.

In my youth, when you were sick, you went to the doctor and paid his/her bill when you left. Then insurance companies stepped into the middle of this process and, as a result, a new set of administrative overheads and profits were required on top of the doctors'. Next came the HMOs which also heeded at least to pay for their high-powered administrators. Lately, even groups of HMOs are adding even more administrative costs to this process .... in order to "save money."

Finally, the Obama administration had an inspiration in its attempt to "bend down the healthcare cost cutie" -- add yet another layer, Obamacare!! And now Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan want also to get into this Conga line to solve our spiraling costs of healthcare ... see: Yahoo Finance Story. Sure! Is this not just another set of palms to be greased?

The result of all this intermediation? An enormous crowd of non-doctors standing between the actual doctors and their patients ... all with their hands out. And we wonder why healthcare costs keep going  up?

Cummon people! The answer to spiraling healthcare costs is disintermediation. Get rid of all these non-medical middle-persons. But there is a problem with this solution -- it is almost impossible to do. All these middle-persons would be lobbying their politicians to keep things as they are  ... and probably will win.

The Hammer

The Obama administration has not been shy about using the levers of government to raise campaign cash or punish those companies or political blocs that have opposed them.  I suppose that this is the Chicago way and, to me, it is very disturbing.  We have seen it in how the IRS blatantly abused its powers during the 2012 elections. Now we are viewing it in how the Justice Department and other government agencies are extorting money from Wall Street firms that didn’t toe the line during these same elections … see: Breitbart Story.  Attorney General, Eric Holder, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) have dropped the hammer on J.P. Morgan to the tune of some $18 billion of unprecedented fines stemming out of the 2008 financial meltdown … see: CNN/Fortune Story and The Guardian Story.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I believe that there were oodles and oodles of real crimes that led up to the sub-prime mortgage crisis.  But have we seen any of the kingpins in these perpetrator firms even go on trial for these travesties?  No.  Most everyone knows who these guilty slimeballs are … yet they luxuriate in their buyout retirements. Instead, we are seeing financial blackmail and extortion.  Monumental fines and fees are being levied against those firms that were told by the United States Treasury Department to adsorb these miscreants’ entities and, now in return, are being financially shaken down.  There is clearly going to be more of this thuggery coming out of this administration … now that our financial firms have been propped up by the Federal Reserve Bank and are thus healthy enough to pony up with some significant pelf.

This behind-the-curtain method of our government’s picking corporate winners and losers is disturbing and presages even more blatant interference in what was once only a slightly corrupt system of political donations.  One can clearly read the message for the upcoming elections in 2014 and 2016.  Support Democrat candidates or suffer similar consequences to J.P. Morgan.  The hammer of big corrupt government is now corrupting the flow of money into political parties further still.  Take that you Supreme Court and your Citizens United decision!  You think that corporations are people and money is free speech?  We will show you that we, guttural government, can subvert the intent of this decision to a fare-thee-well.