Domestic Quagmire of Iraq Proportions Looms In Healthcare

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Sun, 13 Feb 2005 18:12:40 -0000

 

 

Domestic Quagmire of Iraq Proportions Looms In Healthcare

 

 

 

If a monopolistic bottleneck in the healthcare, health

insurance, and

drug industries wasn't enough to bankrupt the system, there are the

chickens of

years of non-regulation by the federal government that have come back

to roost

in the Bush Administration's corporate barn for lobbyists.

Monopolies and their

kissing cousins, oligopolies like to roost and breed in the infra-

structure industries,

where they can merge, buy out or legislate their competitors out of

business.

Each year there are fewer and fewer drug providers, insurance

companies, and

health care providers. For years and especially during the Bush

Administration

these anti-market corporations have garnered more and more control

over the

economy's GNP to the point where they actually control about 20% of

the value

of all goods and services produced.

 

For corporations who must compete in the world

marketplace this

bottle-neck squeeze by the health industries has helped to increase

the cost of

maintaining the health of their laborforce to a point that out-

sourcing competitive

production facilities becomes increasingly necessary to remain in

business and

turn a profit. Meanwhile this oligopolistic cabal has levied what is

in effect a

private monopolistic " tax " on all health care items and they lobby

against any source

of competition, foreign or domestic. They oppose re-importation of

drugs (even

when made in the USA), government interference or regulation of

insurance rates,

or even self-insurance pools by competitive businesses who try to

provide their

own insurance . Wherevever possible they outlaw any competive

enterprise which

might want to provide healthcare, insurance, or generic drugs. They

are in favor of

perpetual patents and copyrights and government financing of medical

research--

as long as new products are awarded on a no-bid basis to existing

drug producers.

 

The latest cash cow they want to milk is liability.

Contrary to english

common law and American traditions, they want to transform

corporations into

quasi-governmental entities--impervious to lawsuits or redress by

average citizens

The latest crusade against " frivolous " lawsuits (by which they mean

lawsuits

against corporations by individuals) simple ignores the fact that

lawsuits by

corporations against individuals (ie the much more common legal

action)

is anywhere from 20 to 400 times more common . Even if they got

exactly

what they want on this agenda--95% or more of lawsuits would remain .

 

Another aspect of this push for unlimited corporate

irresponsibility, is that

the average life-span of Americans is dropping like a rock. From

near the top of

the list 30 years ago, the average US life-span today has been

exceeded by several

3rd world countries. While illegal and generic drugs are closely

regulated in order

to secure a steady profit stream for US drug companies--food

additives in animal

and human food products are routinely added with virtually no federal

oversight . Instead of the mandatory jail time for illicit drug

possesssion ,

poison food additives are only retro-actively regulated. Even fines

for

producing poison food are rare and jail time unheard of. The Bush

regime

has effectly nullified through executive order practically all

regulation in this field.

 

The chickens coming home to roost may solve the social

security actuarial

problem after all. Baby boomers may not live long enough to

collect. If tobacco

use was indentified almost a generation ago now as a major cost to

the entire

social and business cost structures, then additives such as the

hydrogenated oils

produced by Monsanto and ADM have been traced as the primary reason

for

the extra large butt size and clogged arteries now prevalent in the

US population.

It is simple to trace this problem yourself. When European countries

adopted these

oils in line with the NAFTA trade rules, their butts spread out like

Americans.

Those countries which do not allow such additives (most Islamic

countries eg)

are thin like Americans used to be 30-40 years ago. Health officials

have known

about this wide-ass syndrome since this chemicalized oil first

appeared in the early

70's. The extent of this fat epidemic is already registering itself

in greatly

increased incidence of heart disease, stokes, and diabetes. Why do

the food

producers use these oils? Merely because it extends the shelf life

of products.

And contrary to corporate propaganda, the oils drastically reduce the

taste of the

foods that it is used in--rather than adding to it.

 

The cost of the fat epidemic may be a mutiple of the cost of

the tobacco

pandemic. The oils are now routinely added to even many meat

products to

extend shelf life. Added to the feed products of animals which has

turned all

hoofed animals into cannibals, the toxic runoff from oil-based

fertilizers, and

pesticides mutating bacteria into flesh eating preditors in our

waterways, and

the monopolistic stranglehold of the oil industry in promoting

climate change--

the root cause of these epidemics is corporate irresponsibility.

 

When Teddy Roosevelt attacked the concentration of industry

in the infra-

structure he introduced a modicum of regulation in the economy which

was long

overdue. Like FDR's social security program the very idea that the

people have

right to control their own destiny is at stake. It should be

abundantly clear that

the goal of the Bush government is to replace democratic government

with a

new industrial feudalism--where corporate barons decide what, how ,

where and at

what price production occurs. Their foreign policy is in reality a

series of wars to

be fought to extend this system of private government through-out the

world.