The Obamacare fraud

The Supreme Court's consideration of the constitutionality of Obamacare pretty much misses the point. The Obamacare written into law in 2010 bears little resemblance to the universal health care Obama promised when he was campaigning for the 2008 election.

It was, in the end, a bait and switch. Obama promised universal health care. What America ended up with is a law that compels everyone to buy private health insurance.

Not that this subterfuge was Obama's doing. It was the result of fierce resistance to single-payer universal health care by the private insurance industry and Obama's desperation to be seen as delivering something, anything, after having made health insurance the biggest board in his campaign platform.

Americans have an inherent belief that anything that the government does the private sector can do more efficiently. In the case of many consumer products and services that's undoubtedly true. Competition, the profit motive, and all that invisible-hand-of-the-free-market stuff does tend to deliver a lot of goodies in a very efficient way.

But there is a fundamental conflict between societies need for health care and a company's profit motive. As a private insurer you're not going to be profitable for long if you make a habit of insuring sick folks. Sick folks just aren't profitable. They need health care, and lots of it! The money a private insurer pays out getting your kid that desperately needed operation is money taken away from the profit.

That's no way to run a business!

So Obamacare became the toxic compromise. Force everybody to buy private health insurance. That's a solution the health care sector could live with. After all, with single-payer the private insurance industry would cease to exist overnight. And who else gets the government to pass a law requiring every citizen to buy your product?

The insurance industry was appeased, and Obama got to pretend he'd done something about America's health care crisis.

The best thing that could happen at the Supreme Court is that the entire issue gets sent back to the drawing board. Obamacare isn't universal health insurance and Obama shouldn't get away with pretending it is. Americans need to ask themselves why they have the world's most expensive health care system but the health outcomes trail those of every industialized modern economy, and are even challenged by countries like Cuba.

Health care needs to be about people's health, not about corporate profits.