Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Rescue: The Major and the Minor

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is a little bit like the saga of Biden's rescue dog. It seems that Major inflicted a "minor" injury on a White House lackey this week. Now, depending upon your point of view, both the bite and the bill are either boldly aggressive attacks portending future behavior,  or they're nothing but ineffectual nibbles that don't even leave a mark.

Whatever the case may be, I think it's safe to assume that Joe "nothing would fundamentally change" Biden would never tolerate any broken skin in the game on his watch.

Meanwhile, "landmark" and "sweeping" are only two of the gushing, go-to words the corporate media are using to hype the legislation expected to passed handily in the lower House and landing on Biden's desk for a triumphant televised signing ceremony. Gone are all the terrible memories of Donald Trump's own stingy approval of a mere $1,800 in direct cash aid to the majority of Americans last year. Because just as the fairytale princess once spun straw into gold, the Biden administration has magically transformed those promised $2,000 checks into $1,400 checks right before our very gullible eyes. It's a page right out of the playbook of that sly old yarn-spinner himself, Bill Clinton. It was he who set the centrist stage for all manner of austerian bait and switch gimmicks when he folksily and patiently explained, over and over again, why people simply cannot have nice things. "It's arithmetic!"

Therefore, the title of the latest episode: "$1,400 Is the New $2,000."

In this best of all possible Panglossian worlds, the American Rescue Plan will cut child poverty almost in half! Therefore, if you're a very lucky kid, you will not be among those left drowned at the bottom of the half-full glass.

But the private insurance predators? They not only will float buoyantly to the top, they'll be riding a wave. The plan vastly increases their government subsidies to a veritable tsunami of sensible, arithmetic-based windfall profit. Rather than enact even temporary single payer universal health coverage during this terrible pandemic, our leaders have instead rationally decided to fork over billions of dollars to surfer sharks in suits, so they may go about their normal business of denying our claims while collecting their co-pays, premiums and deductibles for services rendered within very strictly proscribed networks in the health care marketplace. 

So, if you're like the uninsured 64-year-old man who tested positive for Covid antibodies but negative on the molecular test, you are now personally on the hook for a $22,368 hospital bill and deemed ineligible for government reimbursement. And even if you're a Covid patient who passed all the tests but whose primary pre-existing condition was exacerbated by the virus, then you're out of luck too.

Gig workers, among other precarious people suffering through the economic effects of the pandemic, may or may not be helped by the American Rescue Plan, which will allow them to retain "skin in the game" by either shopping around for cheaper Obamacare product or getting a nice discount on their pricey employment-based Cobra plans. The New York Times reports that musicians and actors have lost their insurance coverage in droves over the past year, not only because they were out of work, but because predatory insurance companies raised their rates even as they reaped in record profits - courtesy of government subsidies which continued flowing in to their coffers unabated. Insurance companies justify raising the rates to "health care consumers" by pointing to the high costs of the pandemic to their investors.

The Rescue Plan will also bail out 185 multi-employer pension plans, thus saving the retirements of about a million people. It will not, however, extract this money from the private equity vultures who actually looted these pension plans in the first place.

In more rescue largesse in this best of all possible neoliberal worlds, student borrowers who have a portion of their debt forgiven will no longer be on the hook to the IRS for the phantom income derived from their erased debt. In other words, the tax man won't come after you for the wealth you derive from your negative bank account. It's the arithmetic, stupid!

But act now, because many if not most of the rescue plans contained in the Biden offer are set to expire in 2025, if not sooner.  This artificial and rather cynical cut-off date gives Democrats the ability to fund-raise like mad during the election year of 2024 as they "fight for" you with every pragmatic fiber of their beings.

Better to die slowly, in increments, than be thrown right to the dogs by those nasty old Republicans.

Unless, of course, the dog is Major Biden, who is just the latest actor in the Twitterverse culture wars so carefully manufactured to distract us from all our petty cares and worries.


Bite Me


8 comments:

Jay–Ottawa said...


Ever dream with someone about what you would do if you won the lottery for, say, $30 or $40 or $50 million?

“First, I’d get a lawyer so I don’t screw up with the IRS,” says one of you.

“I’d tell no one,” says one chum to another. “Otherwise, relatives you haven’t seen for a decade, or a bunch of heartbreak charities, would come knocking on your door.”

“First off, I’d give a half to … a charity / Oxfam / my church/temple / Doctors Without Borders, … [whatever relieves the pain of survivor guilt in hard times] ….” Then a lux car and special places reached on a private jet.”

“Like a pied à terre in Paris and another in Playa del Carmen”?

“Yeah, yeah. How much dough left now?” And so we leave these dreamers dreaming the dreams of the rich.

Well, well. Uncle Sam just won the lottery, again. $1.9 trillion. What’s he gonna do with that pile? During the campaign he promised to buy M4A, cancel college loans, $2000 checks to just about all Americans, the infrastructure and jobs.

But what he’s really gonna do is the same damn thing he’s done through Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, Trump and now Biden: throw more trillions to the winds. Which bought 800 pieds à terre around the world and lots of friends in the MIC and giant corps. The rest went to his favorite charity: Wall Street. As the new man solemnly declared, “Nothing will fundamentally change."

Anonymous said...

Jay, I think you keft out an ‘r’ in buy...

Jay–Ottawa said...


@Anonymous

Good catch. Not sure what I was thinking in writing “to buy M4A.” To bury M4A was on Biden’s mind, if not his lips during the campaign. Now, as president, with his party in charge of Congress (for the moment), he owns Medicare and has no need to buy it. Predictably, he let go the power to give it to us all and is doubling down on the ACA. Biden is more concerned about the health of the private insurance industry.

Mark Thomason said...

"It will not, however, extract this money from the private equity vultures who actually looted these pension plans in the first place."

When the Kennedy brothers went after organized crime, it was quite specifically because they had looted pension plans.

Our union movement was sacrificed to protect pension plans. Now the pension plans are sacrificed to enrich the non-union corporate titans.

Kat said...

This ain't neoliberalism. It's not perfect, but I'm grateful to all those who organized to get the vote out in Georgia.

Erik Roth said...


“Voters who throw their emotional weight into elections they know deep down inside won’t produce real change in their lives are also indulging in a kind of fantasy. That’s why voters still dream of politicians whose primary goal is to effectively govern and maintain a thriving first world society with great international ambitions. What voters don’t realize, or don’t want to realize, is that that dream was abandoned long ago by this country’s leaders, who know the more prosaic reality and are looking beyond the fantasy, into the future, at an America plummeted into third world status.”
~ Matt Taibbi, "Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America"

Chris Hedges: Bandaging the corpse —
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/517962-chris-hedges-bandaging-corpse/
12 March 2021

Jay–Ottawa said...


I believe we must rethink our opinion of President Biden. With his low-key style he is converting influencers from the enemy. Like David Brooks. (Sorry, I should have asked you to sit down before blurting out that shocking news.)

I'm beginning to wonder whether Joe's so-called mix-ups before microphones may not be dementia after all but the gift of tongues. Hard to tell the difference. He's an observant Catholic, you know; so, miracles are possible, especially where they are most needed, for instance in Washington, D.C.

What prompts me to change my previously-held ultra-negative attitude about Biden is influencer David Brooks himself in his op-ed of this morning. Looks like Brooks has turned his back on the McConnell pack and become, at very least, a pale-bluedog Democrat––mostly because of Biden's signing into law the FDR-sized ($1.9 billion) Covid Relief bill.

Already, Biden's legacy surpasses that of ... um umm ... what was his name ... oh, Barack Obama.

What does David Brooks say? First, the headline: "TRANSFORMATIONAL PRESIDENT." [wow!]

The lede: "This has been one of the most quietly consequential weeks in recent American politics."

Striking passages from the story: "...one of the most important pieces of legislation of our lifetimes ... Child poverty will be cut in half ... Black farmers will receive over $4 billion in what looks like a step toward reparations ... This moment is like 1981, the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, except in reverse ... Biden is not causing these tectonic plates to shift, but he is riding them ... this is something new."

The DNC was so right to bury Warren and Sanders. Biden's the man, the man who makes America great again, within the first 50 days of his inauguration, simultaneously peeling away former devotees of the GOP. For more gush like this, read the top picks of the more than 1,700 comments. Everybody loves Joe.

Jay–Ottawa said...


Back to Medicare for All and how and why it's stalled, thanks to the perfidy of many agents. In his weekly essay Ralph Nader summarizes the situation.
https://mailchi.mp/nader/congressional-democrats-betray-voters-yokm1f3xks?e=dac918192d

As you probably know, the AARP has been in the hands of private health insurance for decades, which is why you should disregard AARP's urging you to sign up for Medicare Advantage. 40% of Medicare enrollees have fallen for that con. The SEIU automatically enrolls its retirees into the Medicare Advantage trap. Could it be that union is also beholden to Big Insurance? Nader explains why Medicare advantage should be called Medicare (Dis)Advantage.

Then there's our unrepresentative representatives, like Pelosi. She is not alone at shifting Medicare over to private hands. Who knew that "The Squad's" favorite tactics lately have been the surprise retreat and radio silence? As for Warren and Sanders, they seem to have lost their voices. Thank heavens for Obamacare. Right. In the $1.9 billion recovery act, theACA is tweaked at the margins to make it more profitable for private health insurance, while Medicare is left wide open to fraud, which now amounts to $1 billion per day. Billion. Per. Day.

Only a couple of minutes with Nader's tight exposé, and you'll know all you need to know about the prospects for M4A. What to do? "...Representative Pramila Jayapal’s H.R. 1384, Medicare for All Act of 2019, [remains] the gold standard for single-payer." Challenge your reps to support HR 1384.