Commentary
“Capitalism without regulation is tyranny” — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
If wealth connotes wisdom, then Rupert Murdoch is easily one of the wisest men in the world. Especially the “con” part. “Americans are retarded,” he smarmed decades ago as he was customizing his money-vacuuming media machine.
Zounds. The America which evolved after he said that has indeed lived up to his low expectations, a self-fulfilling prophecy which more than fulfilled both his pockets and hypocrisy.
I am not totally negative on the future of this troubled land. Compared to so many others, we live in a capitalistic, parasitic jungle paradise.
Sunshine remains the best defoliant and disinfectant.
Our body politick lies enshackled by what economists term “mature capitalism.” Translation: The big fish have just about swallowed up all the little ones.
When Microsoft or Apple see a startup company innovating a promising technology, they buy it for whatever the insurgents ask. Then, the new and improved product or service is distributed and prostituted by the behemoth. Or simply extinguished. If you now own the better mousetrap but you’re making plenty of money with the old one, why change it? Well, maybe just its color every year. (See iPhone.)
“Monopoly” means one outfit is the sole source of a product or service.
Think NVEnergy. “Oligopoly” describes a market dominated by very few and often cosmetic “competitors.” I have long decried the unpleasant fiction that competition exists at the gas pump. Actually, the bandidos hide in plain sight. Conspiring to fix prices is illegal. So they fix prices without talking (conspiring) with each other.
ARCO sets the retail price every morning and can change it anytime. Its few “competitors” charge accordingly, up or down but never much. BigOil cut-throated independent operators and gave them two options: become branded outlets or go out of business. The petro-pirates let a precious few retailers survive to protect themselves legally. (See the NevadaLabor.com Barbwire Oilogopoly archives.)
All but the wealthy have long felt a vague, nameless, seething, seeping anger. You acquired valuable skills. You work hard. But you still have a hard time making it to the end of the month. Every. Damned. Month.
Even the price you pay at the grocery store is largely rigged. Ever heard of “slotting allowances?” That’s a euphemism for kickbacks. Want your overpriced undernourishing breakfast cereal placed in a good position on our shelves? Pay for the space.
Slotting allowances make better product breakthroughs difficult if not impossible.
Back in the 1970s, Tom’s of Maine was marketing alternative toothpaste and other personal basics through vitamin stores. Tom’s products sold so well that retail giant Procter & Gamble bought them out and cashed their image. Now you can find Tom’s of Maine at most supermarkets. Kingfish P&G can afford the slotting fees that minnow-ish Tom’s never could.
Multiply that by a couple hundred thousand items and you have a pretty good idea why your grocery money doesn’t go as far as it once did.
Elections are run by governments and not rigged as a result. Not so today’s capitalists. They are bigger than governments and can afford smarter lawyers and more of them.
Which brings me to the current television feeding frenzy hustling Medicare “Advantage” health insurance. I’m an MA customer and I just read a study that says I am thereby contributing to a Medicare death spiral. You may access the very readable 15-page report by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) with the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com/
Two decades ago, after reading warnings in Mother Jones magazine, I began monitoring “health savings accounts,” a tax dodge for upper income folks and an incentive NOT to seek medical care. Critics called it “anti-insurance” invented by a greedy insurance company from Mike Pence Land. Alas, the cancer survived and thrived. MA is its much bigger cousin.
The trick for both lies in offering attractive perks to healthier people and leave the hard cases to the government. That’s exactly what Medicare Advantage is doing, with a gruesome added twist. Insurance companies are in the business of denying claims and they apply that practice to their Medicare clients.
Bottom line: Medicare Advantage can be OK if you don’t plan to get sick or have a long hospital stay. Start costing too much, and you get stuck with higher prices. And God help you if you live in a Nevada rural community or need long-term care.
Meanwhile, Nevada Gov. Giuseppe Lumbago, R, is fighting legally-mandated establishment of a low-cost public option health insurance program.
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are the last major pots of government money that corporate America has not been able to fully tap. MA insurers already control over half of Medicare clients,
By contrast, Social Security remains the gold standard of good administration. Its operating costs are only three percent. All the rest goes to the people. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., campaigned for “Medicare for All” and was bashed down for his trouble.
Fully one-third of American health care cost is swallowed up by paper-shuffling within a labyrinthine system of privatized profit– while millions of people remain uninsured or underinsured (and undernourished).
The PNHP report concludes “To put the sheer magnitude of overcharging in MA in perspective, (the non-partisan) Congressional Budget Office analysis of a 2019 bill proposing to add dental, hearing and vision benefits to Medicare and Medicaid estimated that in the most expensive year of its implementation, these benefits would cost a combined $84 billion. Even by our minimum estimate, private insurers receive more than enough surplus money to provide (such) critically needed benefits to all Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.
“This is unconscionable, unsustainable, and in our current health care system, unremarkable,” the doctors state.
“Medicare Advantage is just another example of the endless greed of the insurance industry poisoning American health care, siphoning money from vulnerable patients while delaying and denying necessary and often life-saving treatment. While there is obvious reason to fix these issues in MA and to expand Traditional Medicare for the sake of all beneficiaries, the deep structural problems with our health care system will only be fixed when we achieve improved Medicare for All.”
Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for those cruelly afflicted by the criminally small minds on this tiny planet, especially victims of our perpetual wars.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com and DoctorLawyerWatch.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
Leave a Reply