Most Americans are ignorant of the provisions of the GATS treaty, which we signed ages ago. It is dangerous to all of us because inexplicably, its set up to slowly ban public healthcare- The inherently antidemocratic and coercive trade agreement represents an unseen hand guiding the actions of our politicians. Once understood, GATS suddenly explains why they often act against "our" interests, and why they pretend to support public plans to get elected, but, don't, actually. When GATS's goals are understood, the 2008 election and the events leading up to it, and the year since, the dreams and seemingly empty hopes all starts to look increasingly like a very shallow, sordid lie.
The truth? Do some reading, and judge for yourself. Tonight I read that the US through GATS, is as it stands now, committed formally to eliminating the kind of compassion represented by public healthcare plans in the civilized world, as it stands in the way of profit making.
We have to dump these agreements and replace them with something else, something that better balances the needs of the people and business. As Canada emphasizes in their formal, complete exploration of the subject, "Putting Health First: Canadian health care reform, trade treaties and foreign policy" the people's welfare should come first.
GATS/WTO's priorities are completely wrong. And why is GATS there in the background driving public decison making without HONEST admissions of same? Obviously, because they are hiding the ugly, global goals GATS has of putting money over human lives.
The American people have the right to demand an apology from the Obama administration for playing this game with us. The Senate bill cannot be allowed to trigger GATS on health care.
I've posted below the abstract of an article by brilliant and quite unfortunately recently deceased PNHP (and Global Trade Watch) staffer Nick Skala on the subject.
I've been unable to find the full article on the Web, although Ive read small chunks of it in various places using CSS tricks. But I am unable to post them here because of copyright restriction.
I'm sorry this seems so disconnected. If you want to know the truth I've been running a low fever and feeling ill for several days so its hard for me to concentrate. I'm not usually this terse and crabby.
The Potential Impact of the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services on Health System Reform and Regulation in the United States.
"International Journal of Health Services, 2009 by Nicholas Skala
The collapse of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha Round of talks without achieving new health services liberalization presents an important opportunity to evaluate the wisdom of granting further concessions to international investors in the health sector. The continuing deterioration of the U.S. health system and the primacy of reform as an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign make clear the need for a full range of policy options for addressing the national health crisis. Yet few commentators or policy-makers realize that existing WTO health care commitments may already significantly constrain domestic policy options. "
"This article illustrates these constraints through an evaluation of the potential effects of current WTO law and jurisprudence on the implementation of a single-payer national health insurance system in the United States, proposed incremental national and state health system reforms, the privatization of Medicare, and other prominent health system issues. The author concludes with some recommendations to the U.S. Trade Representative to suspend existing liberalization commitments in the health sector and to interpret current and future international trade treaties in a manner consistent with civilized notions of health care as a universal human right.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR"
Some of the rest of the article is readable at the Brittania web site at this URL. It's truncated, and needs to be reformatted. Nicholas Skala died in August 2009.. in his sleep.
Some other bits and pieces, to add to those in my past diaries on the issue.
Notes of NAFTA: "The Masters of Man"
Noam Chomsky
The Nation, March, 1993
A new find: A few years ago, Canada did an analysis, "Putting Health First: Canadian health care reform, trade treaties and foreign policy" (PDF download) of how these multilateral trade agreements could affect their health plans and proposed new services. they came to a great many conclusions, basically they found that they need to step very carefully- its worth reading.
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Some points that I have seen brought up about the threat GATS poses to health reform and affordability - Provisions of the Senate Bill as written will trigger GATS on health care.
GATS seems to me and many others to effectively block proposals to enact single payer national health care because it effectively prohibits the grant of new monopoly rights
Also, any attempt to expand Medicare to cover children or other groups who currently buy services or undercut corporate sales by assisting them purchase prescription drugs might face a challenge under GATS.
Existing, current US commitments under GATS to "liberalize" trade in insurance services, including health insurance, clearly interfere with the 2008 campaign's ambiguously implied promises of federal /state initiatives to make health care services for uninsured and underinsured citizens more available or affordable. Health care reform potentially conflicts with GATS in many ways.
Since Medicare is a "monopoly provider" of health insurance for the aged, it may be subject to the US commitments on financial services under GATS. These include a commitment we have made to the WTO to endeavor to eliminate or reduce the scope of existing monopoly rights. Recent analyses of the Canadian "Medicare" health insurance program indicated that a similar expansion of Canada’s national Medicare program (for example, to cover more) might be challenged and be vulnerable to suits brought under NAFTA and/or GATS. A challenge to the Canadian health insurance program could have serious repercussions for the US Medicare program.
GATS clearly is intended to eventually privatize healthcare, eliminating public plans, so it creates intentional barriers to federal and state attempts to improve access to health care through HMO and insurance regulations. Insurers position on so called "trade liberalization" in insurance services promotes what they call "pro-competitive" regulatory action only, which means that consumer protection should not be able to address pricing and no limits on what kinds or what scope of products should be allowed to be marketed. They only endorse regulations on financial solvency and disclosure issues. The GATS-friendly regulator sees consumer protections and all initiatives to improve access to healthcare like mandates that insurance must cover certain people or health issues, as anti-competitive anathema, i.e trade barriers.
This explains the behavior we have seen from the Obama administration better than any other explanation, as these values map perfectly to his actions. (Not his words)
If it is found that the US has violated WTO regulations, the US could face huge sanctions or fines. WTO decisions are binding on member nations.