Tuesday, March 5, 2024

You Can't Reform Capitalism

Instead, if you're an unpopular neoliberal president running for re-election, you will at least want to be seen as trying . Therefore, in lieu of winning hearts and minds by changing his own mind about Medicare For All, Joe Biden cynically aims to make you forget all about his old campaign promise to at least include a public insurance option in his health care agenda, Who needs that sort of namby-pamby consolation prize when you can join him in privatizing Medicare and Medicaid by calling it an all-out war against greedy corporations?

Since Joe Biden prides himself on being an absolute killer of a genocidal wartime president, the least he can do for the folks back home is to get the eugenics craze up and running at full speed. The fact that his Centers for the Prevention of Disease Control just officially made the Covid  isolation protocols go away, Biden will make it opaquely plain at this Thursday's State of the Union speech that he aims to transform your health care into a full scale cutthroat competition You see, the problem with the American health care industry is not that it's even called an industry instead of a universal program for the public good. It's not that even insured citizens are going bankrupt at record numbers when they get sick. It's not the unaffordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles..

It's that the government-subsidized insurance behemoths should be fighting more among themselves for every last denial of benefits and every last nickel that they steal from your pockets.  

As reported by Politico, Joe Biden will use part of his State of the Union speech this Thursday to announce the creation of a (drum-roll, please) brand new Task Force to study  and root out the roots of the corporate greed they apparently have only recently discovered exists in this country. 

This task force is the next best thing and the only alternative to single payer, government-run medical insurance. The idea is that once Biden's task force studies the problem, it will then have the chops to gently chide the insurance predators into  playing in a new Free Market Olympics for the fostering of capitalistic good will and understanding on the killing fields. Which team will have the best results in narrowing provider choice and cutting costs (and services) in the end? Citizens will root and cheer and vote for Team United Health Team, Blue Cross and all the others.  Which team can valiantly raise the bar on the pole vault and make it harder  to give fans the care they need? If life can't be a constant battle, then what good is it?  

From Politico's breathless preview:

The move comes as President Joe Biden seeks new ways to show voters he’s cracking down on the so-called corporate greed that he has increasingly blamed for high prices — a message he is expected to highlight during his State of the Union address on Thursday.

Biden’s approval ratings on the economy have been dragged down by voters’ concerns about the rising cost of living despite the otherwise robust post-pandemic recovery. And a recent KFF poll shows that 80 percent of voters say it is “very important” for candidates to talk about health care affordability.

Since the person whom Biden is tasking to lead the force also heads the HHS division orchestrating the stealth privatization of Medicare by insurers under the "advantage" rubric,  one wonders if this allegedly novel ask Force is simply another way of putting lipstick on a pig. When Biden calls them greedy, he means it as a Gordon Gekko-like compliment.

And don't look for Biden to issue a price control  or freeze order, either. The problem is not high prices at the grocery store, or rising rents, you see. The problem is a lack of transparency from grocery chains and landlords. If they were only more honest about the many ways that they cheat and bilk you, you would be satisfied, according to the Biden White House.

These are not only supremely stupid people, they think you are as supremely stupid as they are. But look over there: Biden is dropping a few surplus meals-ready-eat packages for bthe starving Palestinians to compete for. He is only trying to bring free market competition into an open-air prisonm after all.

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