The problem with this kind of analysis is that in USAian politics, the vote seems to go to your “team,” regardless of what positions you support. Way too many Republicans are horrified by their party’s positions, but would never vote for a Democrat because reasons. The positions that a person embraces seem less important than the “team” you “root for.”
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I don’t think you can ban private healthcare. Rich people gonna rich and that’s just how it is. What we have to guard against is private healthcare leaching off public healthcare as happens here in Ireland. And then using the excess profits to sell back services to the public system which is underinvested in. Because our political overlords are total numpties.
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You can.
But it faces the same difficulties as banning private landlords.
It is an absolutely Herculean task so, when I say ‘you can’, it is theoretical because, as you so rightly point out, rich people gonna rich.
And our governments are gonna do as they’re told paid.
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I hear you and what I want to “ban”, or more accurately, remove the conditions that make possible, are billionaires. I’m a anarcho-socialist egalitarian libertarian anti-racist feminist just transition green in my personal outlook. Which usually means making common cause or alliances with people who don’t share all my goals. Which is fine because that’s what I believe in. But I’m not for forced collectivisation.
While wealth is a form of violence, typically one wielded on the global south by the north, I don’t feel that banning private healthcare is a good way of going about this. By way of analogy I am a republican (in the Irish sense - anti-imperial, ant-clerical, socialist) but I do not want to subsume Northern Ireland into this state of Ireland which is not the one I want to exist. I want to be part of creating the state which makes the distinction irrelevant, meaningless, and unwanted.
That may be Utopian, but it’s a goal, and if we start about it, we have a lot of time to get there. If we don’t I’m afraid we may not have that time.
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One of the ways this mentality is visible is the “whataboutisms.” When you point out that 45 broke the law that led to his first impeachment, Republicans counter with “whataboutBillClinton!” And it kinda freaks them out when you respond, “yeah, he definitely abused his power and deserved to be impeached for that abuse.” Or regarding Trump’s stolen classified documents, when they complain “whataboutHillary’semails!” And you respond with, “yes, if there was any evidence she mishandled classified documents, then she should be prosecuted for that. But after a long investigation and, it should be noted, after she complied with subpoenas and gave many hours of testimony under oath, no such evidence was found.”
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You can ban private health insurance, though.
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I’m starting to think we might make this it’s own thread, but until someone senior makes that decision I’ll ask, what about Canada?
And I mean that sincerely. I don’t know the business, but it seems like they’re able to have both somehow.
And, again for the record, I loathe health insurance with the brilliance of a thousand suns, so this isn’t me sticking up for that system.
And this isn’t aimed specifically at you. I’m just curious.
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Understood, for sure. I’m not very familiar with the Canadian system, TBH. I am painfully familiar with the American system, inside and out, and I think that even if we have private insurance at some point in the future, the current private health insurance system has to be burned to the ground and ashes scattered, first. Existing health insurers are so bloated and corrupt, and value human life and wellness so little, that if they are allowed to continue to exist they will spend every penny, every work hour, undermining the public system.
I mean, look at what happened with Medicare Advantage? I’m not joking when I say private health insurance is right up there with Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and Firearms as the most evil industries in America, and probably not at the bottom of that short list.
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We certainly need to do something about these fluffy billionaires, who can keep using their stock valuations to roll over their next conquest without converting any of it into taxable wealth.
Imagine if Musk had done something really damaging with that $44B, like buy a whole bunch of middle class homes across the US, and turn them into rental properties. (Mind you, there are probably other people quietly doing just that.)
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Individual investors don’t have to do that because Private Equity funds are already doing it:
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Private equity funds are good at screening where the actual money is coming from. Those funds are probably owned by a small number of very rich people.
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Agree with every point here. Insurance has nothing to do with health or medicine. It is always and only about maximizing profit.
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So, killed like the vampire it is. That tracks.
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i hear ads all the time on my local npr affiliate encouraging people to invest in these things. i gather there are a number of businesses, primarily operating online, that exist to buy up rentals. ( that plus the constant ads for airbnb. )
i figure the retail investment part exists in part to make it politically infeasible to stop, and to ensure that the big companies are considered too big to fail
i suspect we’re more likely to get cities implementing rent control rather than controlling the funds directly. and even rent control seems vanishingly unlikely
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Yay Colorado. You have not let me down
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