B-B-B- But we MUST pay the Bank (Health Care is Still Off the Table)

Taking health care off the table wouldn’t bother me so much if actually made some sort of financial (or logical) sense. Or for that matter if it was actually possible. But, I’m sitting here waiting to go for a doctor’s appointment and a blood test and no one took my diabetes or the co-payment off the table.

You see, we are already paying for health care. A National Single Payer Health Care Plan would only shift some of the money that’s going to pay for administrative costs to private insurance companies murder-by-spreadsheet — using it to cover the medical expenses of the un (and under) insured. From the Physicians for a National Health Plan, Single Payer FAQ:

Won’t this raise my taxes?

A universal public system would be financed in the following way: The public funds already funneled to Medicare and Medicaid would be retained. The difference, or the gap between current public funding and what we would need for a universal health care system, would be financed by a payroll tax on employers (about 7%) and an income tax on individuals (about 2%). The payroll tax would replace all other employer expenses for employees’ health care, which would be eliminated. The income tax would take the place of all current insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket payments. For the vast majority of people, a 2% income tax is less than what they now pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket payments such as co-pays and deductibles, particularly if a family member has a serious illness. It is also a fair and sustainable contribution.

Currently, 47 million people have no insurance and hundreds of thousands of people with insurance are bankrupted when they have an accident or illness. Employers who currently offer no health insurance would pay more, but those who currently offer coverage would, on average, pay less. For most large employers, a payroll tax in the 7% range would mean they would pay slightly less than they currently do (about 8.5%). No employer, moreover, would gain a competitive advantage because he had scrimped on employee health benefits. And health insurance would disappear from the bargaining table between employers and employees.

We KNOW that logic is on the side of a National Single Payer Health Care Plan.  Sadly we also know that getting things done is all about the marketing.  As long as our decision makers market Single Payer as expensive and extreme, we’re not going to get it.

And what do our decision makers want?  Well, what are they talking about today?

New Bank Bailout Could Cost $2 Trillion

The administration, which could announce its plans within days, hasn’t yet made a determination on the final shape of its new proposal, and the exact details could change. Among the issues officials are wrestling with: How to fix damaged financial institutions without ending up owning them.

The aim is to encourage banks to begin lending again and investors to put private capital back into financial institutions. The administration is expected to take a series of steps, including relieving banks of bad loans and distressed securities. The so-called “bad bank” that would buy these assets could be seeded with $100 billion to $200 billion from the TARP funds, with the rest of the money — as much as $1 trillion to $2 trillion — raised by selling government-backed debt or borrowing from the Federal Reserve.

. . .

A Treasury spokeswoman said that “while lots of options are on the table, there are no final decisions” on what she described as a “comprehensive plan.” She added: “The president has made it clear that he’ll do whatever it takes to stabilize our financial system so that we can get credit flowing again to families and businesses.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday that he wants to avoid nationalizing banks if possible. “We’d like to do our best to preserve that system,” Mr. Geithner said. But given the weakened state of the banking industry, with bank share prices low and their capital needs high, economists say the government probably can’t avoid owning at least some banks for a temporary period. (All emphasis mine)

It’s obvious that if it was important to The Obama Administration then we could find the money and the will to Cover EVERYONE.  When they say that we don’t have the money for comprehensive health care reform in the current economic climate all they mean is that they don’t intend to make it happen.

I spit on them all. As Krugman says:

Bad

As the Obama administration apparently prepares to launch Hankie Pankie II — buying troubled assets from banks at prices higher than they will fetch on the open market — it occurred to me that an updated version of an old Communist-era joke may be appropriate: under Bush, financial policy consisted of Wall Street types cutting sweet deals, at taxpayer expense, for Wall Street types. Under Obama, it’s precisely the reverse.

(I’m NOT deleting my Krugman quote — I wrote this first thing this morning, waaayyy before I saw MadamaB’s wonderful post. I guess it’s just another example of great minds thinking alike….)