Time to roll the hard six

I watched Obama's online town hall this morning. It was a good performance that probably added to his considerable store of political capital. There's one issue, though, where I am extremely angry and pessimistic: health care reform.

Obama tried to make the case for "reform" that still reserves a place for "legacy interests," i.e., private insurance companies and employer-based insurance. Why? Supposedly because people are "familiar" and "comfortable" with that framework. Right. It couldn't possibly be because the insurance lobby has most of frakking Congress in its pocket. Yes, the single-payer system as it exists in Canada and Europe is just too radical and controversial for us American rubes.

It's bullshit, pure and simple. There is no way to make a case for reform, for saving money and getting the most health care delivery on the dollar as long as some of those dollars are being siphoned off for shareholder profit and executive bonuses -- profits and bonuses based on the denial of health care.

Instead, Obama kept peddling those same old bogus cure-alls: electronic medical records and preventive care, blah, blah, blah. I don't know about you, but I'm not wild about the idea of my entire medical history in online databases given the state of electronic security and the pattern of corporate abuse of private information. It's also just another thing for private companies to sell at exorbitant rates.

Obama revealed that in the administration's health care roundtables, the insurance companies (bless their hearts!) are "coming around." How are they coming around? They're willing to stop cherry-picking and excluding people with pre-existing conditions from coverage. Their price for doing the right thing? They demand universal coverage be mandated and bought from them. Nice, eh? It's like a license to print money. What business wouldn't want everyone to be forced to buy their product?

When is somebody in Washington going to come out and say it: There is no reform or affordability until health insurance companies are cut out of the mix. Obama must know this -- after all, he's no dope. But, as Admiral Adama would say, he's got to be willing to roll the hard six.

Later came a question about affordable higher education and Obama seemed unaware of the total logical disconnect between his answer on student loans and his line on health care affordability.

He made the case (an easy one to make) that the student loan system as provided by banks and other financial firms results in graduates burdened right out of the gate with payments that keep them from pursuing careers that are socially important but not lucrative or from starting families and buying houses. In other words, debt service on the student loans harm the larger economy as well as the individual graduates.

And so -- now get this -- Obama proposes that student loans should be provided primarily by the government to cut out the middleman profits ("billions of dollars") that would otherwise go to the banks. That's billions of dollars that could go toward more loans that are more affordable. As for the banks themselves, Obama said there are plenty of other places for them to make profits; they don't need to profit from students just starting out in life.

I agree. And here I would add that there are plenty of other places for insurance companies to make profits. They don't need to suck our lifeblood by profiting on health care. That would be billions of dollars that could be used to deliver more and better care rather than lining the pockets of frakking bloodsuckers. Insurance companies already have guaranteed customers for mandated car insurance. They have home and property insurance, travel insurance, life insurance and insurance on insurance. Enough. Frak 'em all. That's the one thing I'd like to see government do before I croak: Cut the insurance companies out of health insurance altogether.

Here's the transcript of the web town meeting Q&A.