First, "Free Market" Welfare for Wall Street: Now Max Baucus's Welfare for Big Insurance and Big Pharma

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

The other day, just before Max Baucus released a "mark up" of his fearfully anticipated bill, I wrote an editor's blog entitled, "Big Insurance to Government: You Make it Affordable, We'll Gouge the Profit!"

Just a few hours later, Baucus shared his bill with the public -- after first getting a sign off from K Street lobbyists -- and it confirmed my basic premise: the Baucus, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Rahm Emanuel "Health Reform" Bill would be a massive financial boon to insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms, at the expense of the working stiff and the U.S. taxpayer.

As others have noted, healthcare insurance and pharmaceutical stocks rose after Baucus showed his hand.

The basic reason is that Baucus-- as I argued in "Big Insurance to Government: You Make it Affordable, We'll Gouge the Profit!" --  allegedly with White House backing -- would bring perhaps 30 million new premium payers (who will of course buy more medications, enriching Big Pharma) to the insurance companies, but we the taxpayers will pay for their profits. 

Senator Jay Rockefeller, no profiles in courage in general, knew that the Baucus bill could economically devastate the generally low-paid, poor, and unemployed of his home state of West Virginia, so he protested about the financing scam to once again redistribute wealth by getting those without many financial resources to enrich those who already have more money than they know what to do with.

Rockefeller, for his concerns about what's left of the middle class and the economically imperiled working class in WV, was according to the New York Times, called to the White House for a dressing down. 

Obama should put a stop to this perversity and stop toying with the public option like a cat with a mouse.

Either this White House is going to stand for the people of America by speakig out loudly and clearly -- and educating the masses in the process -- about who is really picking their wallets, or we are going to see Glenn Beck's legions growing.

Massachusetts has tried a plan similar to Baucus's -- it was supported by then Governor Mitt Romney, if you must know -- and it has run into problems because there isn't enough money in the state coffers to adequately subsidize the windfall profits for Big Insurance.

Many progressives, such as BuzzFlash, support Obama's back -- as we did Bill Clinton's -- but we're tired of giving up the game to entrenched corporations and the wealthy.

Universal coverage and the elimination of denial of care, enrollment, and care is a key progressive goal, but not at the price of being blackmailed by Big Insurance and Big Pharma to use taxpayer money to fund their increased profits.

Health Insurance is a business in which no value is added to one's medical care by the insurer; i.e., the insurance company doesn't provide one iota of treatment.  So why should they receive a gross profit for pushing papers around?

What Baucus is proposing is nothing more than corporate welfare at our expense.

Reagan got great right wing support for pejoratively attacking "the welfare mom with the pink Cadillac."

Why isn't the White House attacking the welfare health insurance corporations with "the CEOs with $17,000 Rolexes and three luxurious homes"?

After all, we are paying for their gluttony, and all they do is run bureaucracies that do the same thing Medicare does for 30% more in cost, thus bloating the price of our healthcare system.

The Baucus bill would be laughable, if it weren't so predictable.  The economic health of the nation gets screwed again by corporate control of Capitol Hill and an accommodating White House.

Real healthcare reform means providing universal care while bringing down the cost of the system and reducing the profit motive from healthcare, because otherwise we are all just going to get killed in the pocketbook.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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