The Reaping – Sunset Observer #17…by Whitney Farmer, MBA – Un Pop Culture | @MDWorld

October 17, 2013 Whitney Farmer 4 Comments

Those who say that health care ideally should be operated as a free market are dangerous. They either are ignorant of the necessary components of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand that must be in place to create the broad economic benefits of improved quality and reduced pricing, or…they are complicit in a monstrous dialogue scripted to line up a slumbering majority for profitable harvesting just one step removed from Soylent Green.

I’m not playing.

If we let them rule in our land under either scenario, We the People become the mechanisms of profit for corporations that have become the true consumers of the health care industry. Insurance, pharmaceutical, medical equipment, and allied support companies are the real customers. We are the harvest. They need you and me to stand under the knife, or step into the harness or stirrups in order to make money. And the more passive we are, the better. You have heard that doctors are the worst patients? Why do you think that is…?

Economics 101…

A market is strengthened through the push/pull tension between buyers and sellers. An educated and motivated buyer seeks for the best value for a hard-won wage. A seller likewise seeks to win that revenue by any possible, necessary, and hopefully lawful means. Buyers sometimes don’t do well on these last two points. Advertising convinces us to buy what we don’t need or changes the price elasticity of products and services in favor of the seller and despite good math. Shame on us. And practices such as insider trading create imperfections in the market that make it impossible for consumers to flex their muscles and move their part of the Invisible Hand and bring equilibrium. So laws are created to protect the laissez-faire equation. Then, shame on you if you break them. Unless you have a cadre of lawyers weaned on Wall Street. Then We the People just have to sit there and let them suckle. That’s a biological analogy of a Too Big to Fail Bailout without a consequent litany of prison sentences for offenders in REAL prisons. You know, like the ones Black people get sent to…

Why can’t health care be operated like a free market?  There are two reasons which have haunted me since I left the field during the last millennium:

• When sick, a person is LEAST able to operate as a successful consumer, able to balance needs with quality by being willing to walk away from the bargaining table if the deal isn’t tasty enough. How am I expected to drive decision-making when I am delirious with pain or under medication? I’m not even allowed to drive a Prius in the slow lane under those circumstances…And people are compelled to give all that they have to preserve life in themselves or in those they love. How can anyone be a smart shopper in that scenario?

• Health technology is now sophisticated and expansive to a level that makes it impossible for an average consumer with all faculties intact to be successful in ordering well from a menu of options available. Everyone is at risk of Supersizing, especially when encouraged by pharmaceutical, equipment, and insurance companies which might make more money by asking, “Do you want fries with that…?” Elective procedures such as plastic surgery are not exempted from this. Clinics woo customers with promises of Zen music in recovery and validated parking for the Bentley, but surgical complications are factored into profit margins with the icy math that Iacocca used when he left Ford Pintos running wild in the streets. ‘…Yes, the recall part costs only $14.00. But – rather than recalling ALL the deathtraps – if we play roulette and let some people get crispy and pay their survivors $100k per explosion, we still end up in the black…’

Economic theory isn’t sacred, and nowhere in holy scripture does it say that you go to hell if you help poor people. As a matter of fact, it says the opposite. But I progress…

There are hybrid financial models that have developed because of realistic factors that can’t be removed from the economic environment and allow capitalism to flourish without becoming predatory. Natural monopolies such as utilities and infrastructure development and maintenance – typically governmentally administered – are supreme examples of these hybrid exceptions. These are usually intentionally created and authorized because the resources necessary to enter these arenas AND successfully deliver absolutely essential services such as water and power are beyond the means of corporations. Also, the risk to society of having essential services controlled by entities with accountability not as public servants but towards maximizing the wealth of private shareholders is too great. Putting these types of enterprises under governmental authority is a key benchmark to accelerated development in the history of economically stable nations. EVERY financially successful civilization has done it. It is a precursor to exponential (you know, a curvy sloped line in a forecasting model?) development, not a consequence.

The risk of privatization of public utilities for the benefit of private multinational corporations was the wholesome dispute that arose between Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on one side and the United States and France on the other. The superpowers agreed to ‘help’ that country’s rebuilding after a coup reportedly facilitated by emergent drug lords cooperatively with the CIA that wrecked what gains that island nation had made after Duvalier’s dynasty finally fell. But the ‘help’ was on the condition that Aristide would sign over essential services such as power, water, infrastructure, telecommunications, etc. to multinational corporations hand-picked by the U.S. and France. Why this contingency? Go to the kitchen and go to the sink to get a glass of water. Then imagine that you own the company that controls what comes out of the faucet…Appropriately horrified, Aristide demonstrated wholesome leadership and refused the offer. So he was…um…kidnapped. He was put on a U.S. military plane with his family, denied knowledge of their destination and threatened with a range of lethal outcomes unless he agreed to resign his office. So he resigned. But I progress…

Here is my proposed solution to our country’s dispute regarding partial socialization of essential healthcare services:

Obey the law.

Require representatives in the Congress and the Senate to show up for work and vote their REPRESENTATIVE conscience. If on moral grounds anyone refuses to show up for work now or in future and do the job that they have been paid to do, they are committing acts of civil disobedience. Good for them. Fair enough. Issue warrants for arrests. Put alleged offenders in REAL jails. Allow them to post bail where appropriate, but not before further investigation regarding misuse of public funds because these people have been hired to work as representatives on our behalf. If they have cashed their paychecks and have either not gone to work to vote or have voted in a way that doesn’t represent their constituency that they have executed a contract (sworn an oath) to serve, they have potentially misappropriated public funds most assuredly on a felony level. File criminal charges where allowed, and proceed accordingly.

I’m not a lawyer. It is possible that the laws aren’t structured to allow this action. So change the laws to make it happen.

Then engage.

NEXT TIME: Puppies and kittens…

Image from “Children of the Corn”, courtesy of www.fantom-xp.com