"Ze Kabuki, eet kontinooze, yes?"
Oh, yes, it continues to ooze. Like pus from an infected tooth. Obama continues to make noises about banking reforms he knows the Senate won't pass while he uses a fake "summit meeting" to push the Senate healthcare bill that "reforms" the insurance industry the same way that South Dakota "reformed" the credit card industry - by giving it everything it ever wanted.
Banking "Reform"
This is a hot-button issue for a lot of people not TPers and Rahm wants a) to tap into or at least deflect the anger at the greedy, arrogant bankers who caused our New Depression by having Obama pretend he's trying to rein them in a la FDR, and b) to tap into the greed and arrogance of those bankers in order to squeeze further blackmail campaign contributions from them. Unfortunately, Obama gives the game away by sending Wall Street Timmy to beg them to back off, which is like sending Dick Cheney to Northern Ireland to as a "peacemaker". Yeah. Right.
The Obama administration redoubled its efforts on Tuesday to overhaul the nation's financial regulations, saying it would not back down from its efforts to restrict the trading activities of banks and to create a consumer agency to regulate financial products.
In an attempt to thwart fierce lobbying against those measures, among others, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, summoned leaders of the United States Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Forum and other groups to a meeting on Thursday to urge them not to obstruct the legislative effort.
If crawling on his belly like a reptile will do it, Timmy has a chance. Or would if that was actually the agenda but of course it isn't. The real reason for the meeting is a leetle bit different.
Other provisions in contention include whom to exempt from new regulations governing the market for over-the-counter derivatives and how to dissolve financial companies before they pose systemic risk to the economy.
(emphasis added)
Now which of those two agenda items do you think will eat up a majority of their face-time? And how much do you suppose those "exemptions" will be worth to Rahm's nascent "Re-Elect Obama Committee" next year? Personally I can't count that high.
Meanwhile, those same bankers whose shoes Wall Street Timmy is shining with his tongue are demanding that Social Security and all other "entitlements" be cut to keep away the Big Bad Scary Deficit Monster. (From Mark G)
The President is setting up a "Deficit Commission." Many, especially on Wall Street, are demanding that Social Security -- the retirement program that people paid into all of their working lives -- be cut. They want it cut rather than start paying back what was borrowed from the trust fund and used to pay for tax cuts for the rich -- also especially on Wall Street. (Never, ever any mention of military, on which we spend about $1 trillion a year if you include veterans programs, spies, nukes and interest on military's share of borrowing. More than is spent by every other country in the world combined.)
Again, mentioning Wall Street, this year $140 Billion was handed out for Wall Street bonuses even as Wall Street did not increase lending. Instead, the profits that generated these bonuses were largely the result of government subsidies.
And so it goes.
Healthcare "Reform"
The other way we know Obama and Rahm don't really mean it is to watch how they've handled the "reform" they're furthest along with and to make note of one of the most meaningful reforms, a reform which would prevent price-gouging. Like the so-called "banking reforms", Obama is making a certain amount of noise about proposing and then backing it but it isn't on the "summit" agenda and the president isn't suggesting adding it to the Senate bill he wants passed.
Rates are soaring all over the country. Insurers have been seeking to raise premiums 24 percent in Connecticut, 23 percent in Maine, 20 percent in Oregon and a wallet-popping 56 percent in Michigan. How can insurers raise prices as much as they want without fear of losing customers?
Astonishingly, the health insurance industry is exempt from federal antitrust laws, which is why a handful of insurers have become so dominant in their markets that their customers simply have nowhere else to go. But that protection could soon end: President Obama on Tuesday announced his support of a House bill that would repeal health insurers' antitrust exemption, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled that she would put it toward an immediate vote.
This is promising news. Forcing insurers to compete for our business would do at least as much good as the president's proposal to give the federal government, working with the states, the power to deny or roll back excessive premiums. The fact is that half of the states already have the power to approve rates and they don't seem to be holding insurers back much.
Health insurers like Anthem claim they have to raise rates (as well as co-payments and deductibles) because of the economic downturn. Employers are reducing coverage and cutting payrolls. As a result, more people are buying individual policies, but they tend to be older and sicker. Younger and healthier Americans are simply going without insurance, and thus not subsidizing their costlier fellow policy-holders.
This can't be the whole story, because big health insurers are making boatloads of money. America's five largest health insurers made a total profit of $12.2 billion last year; that was 56 percent higher than in 2008, according to a report from Health Care for America Now.
It's not as if health insurers have been inventing jazzy software or making jet airplanes. Basically, they just collect money from employers and individuals and give the money to providers. In most markets, consumers wouldn't pay this much for so little. We'd find a competitor that charged less and delivered more. What's stopping us? Not enough choice.
Having consumer choices that allow US corpo's to ratchet up prices? GOOD. Having consumer choices that don't allow such price-gouging? BAD. So is Obama going to fight to kill the anti-trust exemption even as Wall Street Timmy is using another kind of "exemption" to collect campaign $$$?
I could say I don't know and so could you but we do, don't we?
In Obama's America, the "free market" is definitely a sometime thing: we only get one when it favors corporations.
It's a lot like Bush's America that way. Go figure.
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