Affordable Health Care is an Oxymoron

The words “Affordable Health Care” are a contradiction. By its very nature health care is unaffordable. That is the reason so many countries have embraced universal health care as a national responsibility.

The rhetorical term oxymoron, made up of two Greek words meaning “sharp” and “dull,” is itself oxymoronic.

As you probably remember from school, an oxymoron is a compressed paradox: a figure of speech in which seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side. British writer Thomas Gibbons characterized the figure as “sense in the masquerade of folly.” This explanation comes from http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/100-Awfully-Good-Examples-Of-Oxymorons.htm.

In my opinion the most outrageous oxymoron statement was “Peace for our time.” It was said by Neville Chamberlain on September 30, 1938.

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is “peace for our time.” Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.

On September 3, 1939 in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declared war on Germany.

While health care is hardly in the same category as a war, the Affordable Health Care Act is not affordable.

Obamacare rates are going way up. The latest estimate from the federal government is that the average midlevel Obamacare plan, the most popular choice, will cost about 22 percent more in 2017 than it did in 2016. This is based on data from 39 states where people sign up through the HealthCare.gov website and some preliminary data from four other states and the District of Columbia.

The health care industry is a “for profit” system that hides under the IRS category of “non-profit” but pays its management high rewards. Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard J. Tyson earned $2.3 million in salary and other compensation in 2010, according to Kaiser’s federal tax filing.

For profit companies Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini and Cigna CEO David Cordani both saw their total pay surge to $17.3 million in 2015 after earning $15 million and $14.5 million, respectively, in 2014.

Over the past six months, Mylan, which is one of the world’s largest purveyors of generic medicines, raised prices more than 20 percent on two dozen products. And Mylan also boosted prices by more that 100 percent on seven other products, according to Wells Fargo analyst David Maris, who called some of the price hikes “exceptionally large.”

So where is the affordability? The idea of controlled costs is a myth. There are no laws limiting the profits that hospitals earn, pharmaceutical companies earn, or insurance companies earn.

For reasons that evade me the GOP’s war on Obamacare offers no reasonable alternative. Of course if their intent is to protect health care profits by returning health care to the way it was before Obamacare was enacted, they are on the right path.

Blowhards Lead the Campaign for President

NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 05: Donald Trump attends the — NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 05: Donald Trump attends the “Celebrity Apprentice” Red Carpet Event at Trump Tower on January 5, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Pont/FilmMagic)

Donald Trump has made the issue of illegal aliens his hallmark campaign issue. It may be a crowd pleaser for Republicans and other anti-immigrant groups but it is a distraction. The real issue, that Trump has touched upon, is middle class jobs. After all those illegal aliens aren’t taking jobs from the middle class. They are taking jobs from the poorest Americans who have limited skills.

None of the candidates for president have offered any consequential ideas about reinforcing and expanding middle class opportunities. Mr. Trump says he will make America great again. He says he will obtain the support of people like Carl Icahn who know how to bring jobs back to the USA. Details of how this will be accomplished. Who needs details?

“Hillary Rodham Clinton enters the Barnes & Noble to sign her book “Hard Choices” at The Grove, Thursday, June 19, 2014. (Photo by Michael Owen Baker/Los Angeles Daily News)”

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton in her first major speech on the economy stood in front of a crowd called for companies to share more profits with their employees. Look at the listings of those people on the board of directors of any listed company. Their members are heads of other companies. It’s a closed system. Why should they share their wealth? The capitalist system does not call for sharing. It calls for make as much as you can. It’s everyone for themselves.

The leading candidates for president are both too wealthy to really care about you and me.

Goodbye Middle Class

The J.C. Penney closing of 33 stores is a reflection of the decline of the middle class. Comments by readers of this Huffington Post article, I believe, accurately appraises this situation. There is nothing being said about how Penney’s will recover.

Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD:US) plunged the most in more than a year after forecasting a fourth-quarter loss and saying sales during the holiday period dropped. The loss in the quarter ending Feb. 1 will narrow to $250 million to $360 million, or $2.35 to $3.39 a share, the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company said yesterday in a statement. The net loss a year earlier was $489 million, or $4.61 a share.

If these stalwarts cannot survive the message is clear. The middle class, that was the bread and butter for those retail stores, is shrinking away.

It is not an overnight event. As those middle incomes and retired middle class families die the replacements come in just two categories. They are the poor and the well to do. Evidence of this situation is the age of McDonald’s employees. The average age of a fast-food worker in 2013 was almost 30. That is data published by Bloomberg Businessweek. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that more than 35% of the unemployed have been in that predicament for more than 27 weeks. Most of them had well paying middle class jobs.

Meanwhile the median annual compensation for the CEOs of S&P 500 firms is now reported to be above $10 Million. Carol Meyrowitz, the CEO of TJX, earned over $20 Million in 2013. TJX owns Marshall’s, TJ Max, and Homegoods stores. Anthony Petrello was the highest paid CEO earning more than $68 Million last year.

Of course the board of directors of every company is free to pay whatever they deem a fair salary. Government does not set salaries in a free society. Those CEOs must be worth the pay they receive. Or is it the rich protecting the rich? Does the CEO work harder than the clerk?

So what is to become of most Americans? Look for more food stamps, more housing subsidies, and more broken homes.

Private enterprise does not care about its employees. They are interested in maximizing their profits. Don’t like it? Open your own business. That is the way capitalism works.

Capitalism is the Dominant force in the U.S.A.

Why Barack Obama Cannot Re-Make America

The American system of free enterprise is designed for people to make money. Those that are smartest find every way to earn money, as long as it is legal, no matter who it hurts.

Bain Capital is an asset management and financial services company that provides venture money for new and struggling companies. Like any privately held company it is in business to earn the highest possible return for its investors. There are many other companies like Bain Capital. The Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group to name just another two. Sam Zell, a wealthy real estate investor in Chicago, bought the Tribune Company without investing a single dime of his own money (thanks to some ingenious financing) but the company is now bankrupt (you thought he bought it to prop up that company?).

The system has always functioned that way. The founding of the nation was all about free enterprise. Those leaders in Philadelphia were mostly rich men who objected to taxation by the crown. They invented the expression “taxation without representation” to rally the general public. The best example is John Hancock. Before the American Revolution, Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in the Thirteen Colonies, having inherited a profitable shipping business from his uncle. John Adams was a well to do lawyer living in the Boston area. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were both wealthy land owners in Virginia.

If you do not agree with this form of economics you will have to live elsewhere. You will not be successful in changing 200 plus years of a system that has built the wealthiest nation in the world.

Alternative countries that you ought to consider are Italy, France, Germany, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. You might notice that many of these countries are part of the British Commonwealth that Americans hated in 1776. They do have capitalism but also make a greater effort at providing more social programs.

The choice is yours. Just stop complaining about our system. It is what it is!