Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
Oh, those poor souls who are crying so hard about the legislation provided for Universal Healthcare in the House. I mean, our "leaders" were so concerned with helping the average working American who do not have and cannot afford to buy private insurance for whatever reason that they just were so very unfair to those who have contributed so much to the problems we now face. My heart just bleeds with sympathy for these groups of people.
Yes, the first groups to fire up the violin and play a mournful tune were the insurance companies and makers of medical equipment:
Insurers do not like the provision to create a new government-run insurance program. Drug makers oppose billions of dollars in rebates they would have to give to the government over 10 years. Makers of artificial hips, heart defibrillators and other medical devices are not particularly happy about the proposed 2.5 percent tax on their products.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Yes, this is such a very bad deal for them. They stand to get millions of new, forced costumers at their mercy. The need not worry about anything at all really. Everyone knows that a robust public option has been dead for a long time, and once the "House of Lords" known as the U.S. Senate gets a hold of this legislation, anything that would keep the insurers honest and actually help working Americans over big business and the insurance companies will be completely deleted.
The next group to line up at the wailing wall are America's employers, who through their low wages, and disappearing benefits in decades of huge profits have been instrumental in causing the problem all while outsourcing any job that pays enough for workers to buy their own insurance or that offers insurance as a benefit are outsourced so that they can pay virtual slaves in oppressed countries real slave wages:
And employers large and small oppose rules that, for many of them, would make health care coverage — long a job benefit — become a federally mandated obligation.
And again, these folks have little to cry about. They realize they have bought off the House of Lords long ago. The only mandate that will survive that chamber will be the mandate that the American worker, already with stagnated wages and few benefits will be forced to buy insurance without help from their employers. Yes, the working class will be the only ones expected to show any responsibility with a crushing mandate that will force them to pay more of their paltry wages to Corporate crooks without a public option to protect them by providing real competition, something the health insurance industry has not seen in a long time.
Which brings us to our next set of crybabys. The Drug industry:
The drug industry expected harsh treatment from the House and got it. The bill would require drug makers to pay much more in rebates and discounts than in the $80 billion, 10-year deal that the industry struck in June with the White House and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus. The House bill tacked on $60 billion or so in rebates over 10 years, raising the total to around $140 billion.
It seems to me if these folks have all this money to run commercial after commercial for boner pills for us to explain the meaning of to our children on primetime T.V., that they might have a little money to spare towards the greater good of our nation. Maybe a little less "Smiling Bob" and gray haired, elderly men who can get it up again and a little more sacrifice towards our society as a whole would be a winning combination. As a girl at work recently told me, "That is all we need in this country, a bunch of 65 year old men walking around with 10-inch boners".
This is surely a Greek tragedy for all these folks is it not?? However, closer examination leaves one to wonder just what all the sadness is over:
"All industries stand to gain from this legislation," Steven D. Findlay, senior health policy analyst with Consumers Union in Washington, said in an interview. "They’re going to continue to fight their narrow issues and get the best that they can get. But all of them are aware they stand to gain significant new business and new revenue streams as more Americans get health coverage and money flows into the system for them."
But some observers say the House legislation is much less of a threat than the industry had feared. While insurers were worried that the government plan would be able to piggyback on the Medicare program in being able to demand lower prices than the private insurers get from doctors and hospitals, the House legislation does not give the government plan the same bargaining power as Medicare.
In a victory for the biotechnology drug industry, the House bill would give biotech drugs, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, protection from generic competition for 12 years.
Ah yes, how very torturous to be in the wealthy elite, and in Corporate America. The greediest and least patriotic among us have just gotten such a raw deal out of all of this.
To me, it seems as if the only group that are not crying like spoiled-rotten children is the very group that should be. The hard-working American whose wages have stagnated and have no benefits that is working harder than ever and still cannot afford to insure themselves. Out of all this gnashing of teeth, my bet is they are the only ones who will sacrifice from any of this. They will be provided with a crushing mandate that puts them at the mercy of heartless, greedy insurance companies without the benefit of a robust public option, or any public option at all to protect them.
Yes, despite all this those who needed this legislation to be real reform are the very ones who should be singing the blues. What was once something that would be good for them, and give them hope is being reduced to figuring out just how much Corporate Welfare is going to be doled out to who, and how we can keep the elite and greedy from sacrificing anything and in fact how we can enrich them further.
That is the great sadness of healthcare reform.