Well, it's been about two and a half years since my last "blog" post, and as far as I can see, very little in the intervening period has happened to change my opinion. Now, gas prices are back in the >$3 range (having remained close to that level for the past two years in California) and with oil prices currently hitting the $90+/bbl mark and almost certain to surpass $100/bbl I anticipate gasoline prices will approach $5/Gal this summer. To see how I feel about all this, take a look at my March, 2005 post.

In the meantime, I have another rant upon which I wish to expound - healthcare. I had fully anticipated that the state of the US healthcare system would be a major issue in the 2004 elections, but in the event the Bush Administration's disastrous foreign policy took precedence and healthcare was pushed to the back. In the current campaign, healthcare is again at the fore (at least for the Democratic candidates) but once more, we see that the public interest has been trumped by the deathgrip that corporate, monied interests holds on the political process.

Why is it that none of the current candidates (with the notable exception of Dennis Kucinich - who probably has less chance of being nominated than I) for the highest office in the land will dare mention what (I believe) a majority of us understand; that the health insurance industry's self-serving control of healthcare MUST be broken before any meaningful reform of healthcare in the US can occur?

Here are some key statistics (from the Census Bureau, August 29, 2006):

Health Insurance Coverage
Overview

• The number of people with health insurance coverage increased by 1.4 million to 247.3 million between 2004 and 2005, and the number without such coverage rose by 1.3 million to 46.6 million (from 15.6 percent in 2004 to 15.9 percent in 2005).
  
  
• Between 2004 and 2005, people covered by employment-based health insurance (174.8 million) declined from 59.8 percent to 59.5 percent.
  
  
• While the number of people covered by government health programs increased between 2004 and 2005, from 79.4 million to 80.2 million, the percentage of people covered by government health insurance remained at 27.3 percent. There was no statistical difference in the number or percentage of people covered by Medicaid (38.1 million and 13.0 percent, respectively) between 2004 and 2005.
  
  
• The proportion and number of uninsured children increased between 2004 and 2005, from 10.8 percent to 11.2 percent and from 7.9 million to 8.3 million, respectively.

These statistics argue that the system is broken beyond the ability of the insurance industry to fix, yet this industry jealously guards its perquisites and will not relinquish its ability to control the very lucrative business of skimming the cream of the crop (i.e. people of working age who tend to be in more highly-compensated positions/industries and who tend to be the healthiest, and thus least costly segment of the population to insure) whilst ensuring that they do not share the risk (and thus cost) of insuring those portions of the population most likely to require healthcare services - the old, the infirm, and the very young.

And yet, there is little outcry for change. Every candidate who advocates for any meaningful reform is immediately challenged by outraged cries of "Socialized Medicine" and "the US has the best health care in the world - do you want to endanger it?" and is essentially shouted down without reasoned dialogue about the current state of the industry. Under the "socialized medicine" rubrik, the opponents of meaningful healthcare reform dismiss the healthcare system in virtually every advanced country, including all of Western Europe. The idea they (opponents of reform) expound is that we have "choice". This is nonsense. Anybody who participates in an HMO has less choice you would have in England, Canada, or Germany. I must choose a doctor from a list put out by my HMO and if I wish to see a specialist, I must go to my "gatekeeper" GP for a referral before I can do so. Furthermore, any prescriptions I receive must be "approved" according to the formulary promulgated by my HMO if I am to receive any benefit. Some choice.

Some may argue that the health insurance industry is too large and employs too many people to reform out of business. This is hogwash. The same arguments were made during the past 40 years as the tobacco industry faced increasing regulation and shrank in terms of importance to the economy. The US economy will find uses for the highly trained people in the insurance industry, and it's not like the industry will disappear overnight. The process of reform will take several years, and create new opportunities and new jobs as the functions the insurance industry currently serves transition to other (govermental) organizations. Of course, the Republicans will scream about expanding government (in their view, government being the fount of all evil), but given that the current Republican administration has overseen the creation of the largest, most encompassing bureaucracy in the history of this nation (DHS), their argument is weak, at best.

More on this later...