A recipe for corruption
Mar. 28th, 2012 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marjaerwinTrigger Warning.
I think an individual mandate is a recipe for corruption.
It requires people to pay off the insurance cartels, giving them more money and more power. I don't think the planned profit caps will change that. And these profits do not come from the owners' labor, nor insight, nor lucky windfalls; they come, in the larger part, from privilege, and from other people's labor.
It puts control of access to health care in the hands of institutions which are now protected from boycott, and are still shielded from the nondiscrimination and transparency requirements any public institution should face. [not that the state actually follows these requirements either] I don't think the planned limits to their discrimination will change enough.
I can't understand why anyone, except the most extreme right-wingers, could support this plan. The insurance cartels are part of the problem. Even if they are required to cover people with disabilities, their nature is to jack up rates for people with disabilities, and for people with other medical issues, and their nature is to refuse to pay for anything, and to drop people with any medical issues as soon as they can get away with it. The insurance cartels have enough 'market' power already to negotiate lower costs for themselves, leading to much higher costs for the rest of us. The insurance cartels will only gain even more 'market' power from the individual mandate. I'm not sure the rest of the bill will weaken them half as much as the mandate strengthens them.
I think an individual mandate is a recipe for corruption.
It requires people to pay off the insurance cartels, giving them more money and more power. I don't think the planned profit caps will change that. And these profits do not come from the owners' labor, nor insight, nor lucky windfalls; they come, in the larger part, from privilege, and from other people's labor.
It puts control of access to health care in the hands of institutions which are now protected from boycott, and are still shielded from the nondiscrimination and transparency requirements any public institution should face. [not that the state actually follows these requirements either] I don't think the planned limits to their discrimination will change enough.
I can't understand why anyone, except the most extreme right-wingers, could support this plan. The insurance cartels are part of the problem. Even if they are required to cover people with disabilities, their nature is to jack up rates for people with disabilities, and for people with other medical issues, and their nature is to refuse to pay for anything, and to drop people with any medical issues as soon as they can get away with it. The insurance cartels have enough 'market' power already to negotiate lower costs for themselves, leading to much higher costs for the rest of us. The insurance cartels will only gain even more 'market' power from the individual mandate. I'm not sure the rest of the bill will weaken them half as much as the mandate strengthens them.
