ARTS & FARCES internet

The vast majority of the general US population—certainly anyone who’s actually had to deal with it—realize with absolute certainty that the American healthcare system is terribly broken. President Obama claims to realize this. But he doesn’t; it’s all a big lie, or more accurately a carefully crafted set of lies. If you believe an incredibly complex system is terribly broken, why would you throw US$1 trillion at the parties that actually broke it.

You wouldn’t. Unless what you were really interested in was enriching the health insurance system in return for Democrat campaign enrichment. And that’s exactly the situation in which the American citizenry finds itself.

Obama never planned to really reform healthcare, he and the rest of the Democrats were bought by the pharmaceutical and health insurance lobbies before this even really got going. How else do you explain that Obama campaigned hard—really hard—against an individual insurance mandate (that was Hillary Clinton’s idea, after all) and for the public option. How else do you explain that the universal coverage, single-payer advocates were excluded from the early discussions. Remember this: The public option was the compromise to keep universal coverage, single-payer off the table. Everything that’s taken place after than is American Kabuki theater.

Firedoglake has compiled a excellent and concise fact sheet about the lies behind Obama’s healthcare reform (.pdf; 164KB). Here are the low points of the currently proposed legislation that the US House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on today:

1. Mandates that citizens pay eight percent of their annual income to private insurance companies or be penalized two percent, collected by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
2. Fails to provide universal coverage; 24 million will be left uninsured
3. Is virtually identical to the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) 2009 plan; if you haven’t been paying attention that’s the health insurance lobby; the Senate Finance Committee bill was written by a former insurance executive
4. Does not make healthcare affordable
5. Excise tax will cause employers to continue to move the cost of healthcare to employees with poorer insurance and higher deductibles and co-pays
6. Excludes every key cost control measure (public option, Medicare buy-in, drug reimportation, Medicare drug price negotiation, shorter patents for generic biologics); as a result total annual healthcare costs will continue to rise
7. No enforcement mechanism to prevent insurers from dropping coverage when individuals get sick
8. Insurers continue to be exempt from anti-trust laws and remain free to raise rates in most states
9. Solidifies the Employee Retirement Income Security Act(ERISA) laws that in practice have precluded state-based single-payer systems

I rarely make predictions but here’s one so obvious as to be painful. The Republicans are participating in the American Kabuki theater for now. They’re balls-out trying to derail the bill, but they still have on all of their makeup. Once this legislation either passes or fails, the Republican makeup—and the Republican gloves—come off. The Republicans are going to make a lot of political hay with the individual mandate.

Firedoglake’s Jon Walker reports on five amendments made by Republicans in the US House of Representatives Rules Committee. Each of these amendments would effectively eliminate the individual mandate to purchase insurance or face a two percent penalty collected by the IRS. Buckle up, folks, the attack ads are already in production.