The Health Care Mess

Is Obama's health care reform proposal all what it is cracked up to be? Of course the WSWS finds a lot wrong with it:

As five different Democratic-sponsored plans continue to work their way through Congress, the White House is still hoping a deal can be reached among the various House and Senate versions before the August recess. The possibility of such an outcome appears increasingly remote as the legislation has come under attack from Republicans, a section of fiscally conservative Democrats and a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Obama has pressed for the adoption of health care reform as perhaps the key pillar of the first year of his administration. His vision of “reform,” however, is based on rationing of care and cuts in expenditures. According to his views, all medical care should be subject to “cost-effectiveness” analysis.

He has consistently come out against establishing a so-called single-payer system, where the government would operate the health care system. Such a system, he argues, would be highly disruptive to the current system, i.e., a system based on health care for profit. Obama has also insisted that his plan will be “budget neutral” and chiefly paid for through the gutting of the federal entitlement programs for the elderly and poor, Medicare and Medicaid.

Note this about Dina Titus, representative of Nevada's third district:

The two—Dana Titus, from suburban Las Vegas, and Jared Polis, representing the wealthy suburbs of Denver, Colorado—opposed the bill largely due to its inclusion of a one-percentage point surtax on couples with incomes between $350,000 and $500,000. (This would gradually increase to 5.4 percent on earnings more than $1 million.)

With these "Democrats" opposing any meaningful reform, there isn't a chance in hell it is going to happen.

The problem with health care in this country is it is a mostly for-profit system, and health care systems should not be subject to the bottom line. Insurance companies have to be cut out for any meaningful reform to happen. Since almost all of our elected officials have been paid off by contributions, there is no political will to do what is necessary.