Medicare Part D, Healthcare Reform and the Edgar Alan Poe's The Purloined Letter

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

I have been supremely troubled ever since the Medicare Part D bill passed with the insane proviso that Medicare could NOT negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma.

If any single act of Congress pointed out their to-the-bone servileness to corporate interests, it was that particular act. And yet, I still used to toss and turn and say why? why? why would they do something so clearly counter to the interests of the country, the economy, our fiscal stability and why would they dare to be so open about it?

In answering another OP somewhere around here about the need to regulate private insurers, I wrote that the lack of regulation and the permissible, let's all look the other way attitude of regulators while the insurers gouged the public, canceled coverages, and evaded their contractual responsibilities is what allowed the insurers the ability to amass their unholy piles of lucre in the first place. They would never HAVE the dough except FOR the complicity of the Congress. It's the end product.

That's how they (Congress) actually generate the loot that ultimately finds its way back into their own campaign coffers and pockets. Duh, you say? Somehow, believe it or not, I never really thought about the fact that in order for corporations to co opt Congresscritters(with campaign contributions, soft money and the like),they (the corporations) have to actually have that extra money available.

The pols have to make sure that their policies do not interfere in the minting of these unnatural (in the sense that they are not derived normally) profits in order to generate a portion for themselves too. The money that is being passed out as political favors is probably money that wouldn't exist if not for the preferential treatment some industries are given by the recipients of the favors.

And they have all become so brazen they will do it right out in the open, like with Medicare part D. And they're still doing it.
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The Purloined Letter for those of you who are unfamiliar with it is often called one of the very first detective stories. It has become a metaphor for a solution being so incredibly obvious and in the open that it is overlooked by most.

[depakid]

1. "let's all look the other way attitude of regulators while the insurers gouged the public"

Not to mention ERISA preemption -which has had nary a mention despite appalling injustices.

See, e.g. Kuhl v. Lincoln National.

http://www.harp.org/kuhl.txt

(If this doesn't chap your hide, nothing will).

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. Don't get me started. That's enshrined in my knitting as well. nt.