Brother-In-Law Lashes Out; I Lash Back

Yes, indeed, this will be a long, long decade!:

What your boys did to health care pisses me off. My premium is up 68.1% Good job.

That’s not our boys; that’s your boys! Delaying implementation till 2014, and not having a public option for cost containment, will ruin us all.

No R voted for this. It's your boys.

Health care delivery, like electricity delivery, forms imperfect markets, which means that customers are not free to shop (heart patients do not shop when they need surgeons; neither do customers put out bids for electricity providers). In markets, shopping is the primary cost-control mechanism.

Imperfect markets with few providers immediately degrade into cartels, where providers collude to keep rates high, unless they are forced to compete with an entity that has different priorities – generally a publicly-owned provider answerable not just to shareholders, but taxpayers too.

Sometimes all you need is proximity to keep prices under control. For example, in Sacramento, the simple existence of the publicly-owned SMUD electricity utility is enough to keep the privately-owned PG&E’s utility rates under control, because they exist side-by-side, and SMUD can poach on PG&E’s turf if disparities get too great. But if SMUD didn’t exist, PG&E could double rates overnight and hardly anyone could stop them.

All that liberals want is a public option – a public provider of health insurance, just like every industrialized country in the world has (except the USA) – which would force private insurers to stop colluding and start competing, and keep rates down. Without the public option, the health insurance cartel can raise prices to any level they want.

So, the R’s got what they wanted – no public option – which means the sky’s the limit on rates. I’m sorry you are so heavily-impacted, but you are hardly alone (rates are up 40% in CA).

So, this disaster has the R’s fingerprints all over it. They just don’t care. D’s are trying to fix the mess, but if R’s keep acting as the health insurance cartel’s stooges, it won’t happen.

Any ideas on how I will get my healthcare?

Parameters: I'm a 62 year old white guy, an R, not in a union, retired. Comments on how it will happen?

(As you listen to this, ask yourself, "What Country Do We Live In"????)

Well, your health care will be rationed, according to your ability to pay – same as it has always been.