I'll try this again and why on earth isn't it worth discussing?

You know, there's an alternative that may just fix this. Once the health insurance market collapses on itself -- which it will most likely do at some point in the not-so-distant future -- we might get around to trying it.

 

Well, don't keep us all hanging ... what is the solution? Single payer?

 

I Don't Know Whether To Be Offended Or Not

 

How to bring it back: Tariffs.

 

That dog may not hunt much longer, given how many free-trade deals the US has signed or is in the midst of signing. Even if the government goes down that path, all it does is invite retaliatory tariffs.

 

If you start charging some of these corporations who have chosen to put their manufacturing in other countries like Mexico tariffs to bring it back in the U.S., they just might find it more cost-effective to manufacture it here.

 

If oil goes up, and long-term, I agree that it will even though its way too high given current conditions, it might actually help our manufacturing base as it will become prohibitively expensive to ship overseas.

Who knows?

 

Yes, that's what I meant. I don't want to get into a political debate about it, but I'll be happy to talk about it on a policy level.

Maybe I'm wrong, but outside of a) completely changing the way people use their health insurance or b) giving into true market forces and making health insurance exclusive to the ultra-healthy and ultra-wealthy, I don't see how we can seriously address skyrocketing health care costs without a single payer system.

It's true that the government does some things inefficiently. It's also true that the free market does some things inefficiently. Health insurance happens to be one of the things the market handles rather inefficiently. That's not an assault on the free market -- it's reality.

We already have a single-payer insurance program in this country that is wildly popular and really efficient. It's just being bogged down by the fact that it's only available to the most expensive part of the population to insure, and that part of the population happens to be growing rapidly.

Again, I'm not trying to start a political debate. I realize single-payer health care would be virtually impossible to achieve right now or any time soon (though Bernie Sanders introduced a single-payer bill today with the backing of the AFL-CIO), and I also realize that there are a lot of people who are totally averse to the thought of it. So politically, it's only going to start a pissing match that isn't worth having.

 

Well that certainly is a large part of how we used to keep our jobs here back in our more prosperous days. But then the free trade religion took over and mandated that all such things must be extinguished. And soon our middle class jobs started being extinguished as well.

Unfortunately, I think trying to return to more protectionist policies would prove a far tougher trick than doing away with them was. The genie is out of that bottle, we've now got a world economy set up on the premise that the U.S. follows this globalized free trade model. If we suddenly announced the intent to return to former policies with a few tariffs, there'll be a some seriously pissed off countries, and the threat of ugly trade wars.

That said, I don't necessarily disagree. Tariffs may indeed be necessary. But it won't be an easy sell.

 

Because, the GOP is straight forward and honest when they cater to the CEOs of the world. They truly think organizing poor people, unions, etc., is a waste of their time and money.

Unions are good so long as they serve their people rather than turn it around and have the people serve them, as in the bosses.

 

That didn't answer the question.