Spending more to get less: health care in America

The New York Times recently featured a hard-hitting article about the stark choice that American voters face between Obama's vision of health care and that of Romney.

Stark choice my ass.

Obamacare used Mitt's Massachusetts health care reforms as a template for Obamacare, a fact that even hard-core Tea Party types don't deny. The only reason that there is any difference between the candidates positions today is because the Governor has disavowed what he accomplished when he was governor, mainly to placate that same Tea Party wing of the GOP.

In a nutshell, both the Mass plan and Obamacare preserve the status quo, with the additional sop to the health care industry of subsidizing insurance for anyone who can't afford it. The fact that the passage of Obamacare sparked a flurry of buy-outs among health care providers and insurers, a topic we've touched on here before, signals that the industry understands very well that their gravy train is bound for an even more lucrative ride through the pockets of the American consumer.

PBS has an informative article that explores some of the reasons that other developed countries manage to deliver superior health care (when measured by outcome indicators) at substantially lower costs, without excluding the poorest third of their populations.

The stark choice is not between Obama and Romney. It's between Obamney and a single-payer public system.

Why this is not immediately obvious even to near-cretins speaks to the efficacy of the industry's propaganda machine. When private for-profit corporations are responsible for deciding who gets what services, their bottom line is their bottom line. In other words, what you actually need is not.

By definition they need to make a profit. They don't make a profit by providing expensive medical treatments to every policy holder who gets sick.

Research consistently shows that countries with government run health care achieve better results for more people using less resources. The evidence has been around for decades and is indisputable.

But it flies in the face of the great American myth that the private sector is inherently more efficient than government.

The American public is paying the private sector a 40% premium to keep that myth alive.

Is your doctor exposed to the European currency crisis?

Sure  hope not. You wouldn't want her distracted with bad thoughts about her huge bet against the Euro while she's leading that team on your triple by-pass.

Seems that the Supreme Court's decision in favor of Obamacare has unleashed some good old market forces. Health care insurers are out-bidding one another to gobble up their rivals, because everybody understands that what Obamacare really amounts to is a bottomless subsidy of profits for the health care industry.

Since the court decision you've seen Cigna  take over Healthspring, Wellpoint take over Amerigroup, and most recently Aetna's buyout of Coventry. Billions of investment dollars are jostling for position at the Obamacare trough. Kind of ironic when you reflect on the fact that the American  health care system is the most expensive in the world but has outcomes that are hard-pressed to rival those of Cuba.

Indeed, hedge-fund sharpie David Einhorn made his crew a cool 66 million or so in a matter of months by taking a long position in Coventry. Here's what Einhorn said at the time they placed their bet;

Coventry has no exposure to the European currency crisis, a possible Chinese slowdown, or other cyclical headwinds.

What the fuck is that? Are we talking about my triple by-pass or something else?

Obamacare. It's all about the money.

Wall Street loves it!