“The American people want us to start over,” Pence said. “Releasing the power of the free market is the pathway toward expanding access and affordability of health care across the country.”
This is one of the dumbest f*ckin’ things any national politician has said of late, and that’s a startlingly low standard. First of all, it was not “the American people” as such, but those who voted Republican, and they are not a majority of the American people. Second, you’d have to be the dullest tool in the shed (or succumb to a colossal act of self-deception, wishful thinking, or state of denial) to think a regressive return to “the power of the free market” is going to be the panacea to our health care system, as Vice President-elect Pence claims. Such a claim is dangerous ideological claptrap that, to the extent it proves capable of motivating policy changes, will be responsible for endangering the health and lives of countless people in this country, apart from its evisceration of any tangible conception of and movement toward “health justice.”
Recent relevant links from the Los Angeles Times:
“Republicans offer no plan to repeal Obamacare as more party members express concern.”
“Republicans call Obamacare a ‘failure.’ These 7 charts show they couldn’t be more wrong.”
We can't return to the "power of the free market" since we never have had a free market in health care in the first place.
The model of the free market is that enjoyed by Amazon, Walmart and eBay, where there is open competition, posting of prices for all products, absence of licensing requirement for producers or their agents, no insurance needed to participate, competition across state and international borders, no gummint price fixing, no gummint limitation on entry into the market, and no gummint-authorized price discrimination.
Posted by: Jimbino | 01/05/2017 at 08:24 AM