Some Observations on the Current Healthcare Battles in the United States

Universal healthcare has been successfully implemented in almost all areas of the developed world as well as in most areas of the developing world. It’s been in place for a long, long time, and it’s become better and more efficient, dramatically less expensive than what passes for healthcare in the United States today. It is not perfect everywhere else, but it’s decent in most places. It’s recognized as a right under all modern concepts of human rights and embodied in treaties that bind almost all countries. The United States, of course, is the exception.

Former President Barrack Obama’s original healthcare concept, which included a public option, was a very good first step, but, it was all too quickly abandoned by its framers and in its place, an insurance industry friendly golem was substituted and passed when the Democratic Party held the entirety of the federal government, as the GOP does now. He and they sold out and provided the American People with a system destined to fail in its promised results, one inferior to those in force almost everywhere else. A worthy legacy for that president as it in many ways mirrored the numerous betrayals posed by his administration and the Democratic Party (think Guantanamo, and world peace, and bringing us together and “yes we can”), but betrayals with a happy face and full support from the mainstream media.

The GOP healthcare proposal is probably not much better than the terminally ill plan currently in place, possibly not better at all, although perhaps significantly more honest (note that more honest is not the same as honest). Not that such relative honesty will alleviate our suffering other than briefly in the self-delusive game of politics.

The losers, as always, are the members of the American public, especially the middle and lower classes. The mainstream media and the Democratic Party are blasting away with their fearsome arsenal of, … well; fear. The public is confused and, well, … frightened. American Exceptionalism, in this case, represents the right to be different than almost everywhere else in the world, albeit not in a good sense. But the essence of the issue, the common welfare, well, according to the mainstream media and the Democratic Party, “everything will be all right if only you give us absolute power … again. Trust us, we’ve always had your best interests at heart,.. after all, who are you going to believe (paraphrasing), us, or your lying memories?”

So, nothing ventured nothing gained they say. They might as well tell us to venture away, the result will be the same. “We can obstruct away with the best of them with a little help from you” (the motto of today’s Democratic Party). “Don’t call, a check will do just fine, or many, many checks, Nancy Pelosi will be emailing you soon, or Barrack, or Michelle, or Joe, or …. [sad to say], Bernie”.

So, … why the Hell can’t we have decent universal healthcare like most of the rest of the world, single option for the collectivist among us or mixed private with public option for individualists? Aren’t we the seed needed so that our leaders can keep stealing their fair share of our crops (at least fair in their eyes, but the concept of fair is so subjective)?

The answer is straightforward if neither simple nor logical?

Because our verisimilitude of capitalism requires that high levels of belligerence and fear be maintained everywhere, domestically and internationally, with our human and fiscal resources concentrated on a sustainable, permanent human misery generating industry focused against a continuing series of “new and better” or “old, tried and true” enemies (and if the threat of nuclear annihilation can be increased and made more manifest, so much the better). A system so very profitable that industries whose goal is diminution of human suffering haven’t room at the table except in so much as they too increase profit margins for the few. “Investocracy”, not capitalism, or socialism, or welfare-state-ism. Bare subsistence is more than enough for the rest, if not so, why would the Divine have created bread and circuses, with the bread being a bit superfluous.

Profits!!! All hale (a pun, not a misspelling)!

The Holy Grail has never been lost, it’s always been there. Squeeze the lemons (us) for all they’ve got so that the few, the arrogant, the wealthy and powerful, can keep enjoying the lemonade frothing there, all the while culling their ranks into fewer and fewer, wealthier and wealthier, truly entitled elites. I wonder what will happen when they are only two; perhaps an old fashioned marriage. For those who might wonder what the Investocrats favorite sport is (they do own all the teams now), the answer is “Taaa taaa: Surprise! Not baseball, or football, or hockey, or basketball, or soccer; it’s a mainstream media promoted fight between two major political parties, in many ways siblings, a fight all too similar to that of dogs or cocks fighting over nothing but the privilege of amusing their audiences. The Investocrats own them as well.

So, … back to the healthcare circus. The difference between Obamacare and Trumpcare, or Democrat-care and GOP-care is not really relevant, it’s the amazing fight between rabid dogs they represent that counts.

Zen-like, we’re mesmerized, reality is just an illusion, we’re not really in pain, or dying, and anyway, it’s all for the best.

Divide and conquer. Remember? And we are more and better divided than ever, racially, sexually, regionally, ethnically, politically, economically; what a wonderful tossed salad we make for our betters to feast on.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2017; all rights reserved