#1066 Paid Market

I recently came across one of those “instant polls” on a website. You know the ones I’m talking about; they ask you to choose from three really simplistic answers to a complex question. Two of the answers are absolutely ludicrous, or phrased in such a way that to choose them would make you seem like you were either exceptionally cruel or a total idiot.
The last choice always seems mild, comforting, reasonable, and familiar. In this case the question was, “What do you think is a best solution to the healthcare reform issue?” And the mildest, most comforting, and simple answer was, “Let the free market do its thing.”
Now I’m a big advocate of the free market, I think it’s one of the most natural and responsive economic systems there is. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s far from free, as the manipulations of the Madoff’s and the AIGs of the cratered economy have pointed out.
There are all kinds of un-free forces at work in healthcare and every other enterprise, as various groups roll out the dough to capture their biggest slice of the un-free pie.
In any event, about the time I saw the survey I saw an interesting statistic. The insurance industry and some medical groups have hired more than 350 ex-government staff people and retired congress-folks to help them lobby about aspects of new healthcare legislation. It is a record-breaking influence campaign by those in the health-care industry who stand to lose the most profits.
And here’s the most sobering statistic in these near-depression times. They are spending 1.4 million dollars a day on lobbying. That’s right, 1.4 million dollars a day. Talk about economic stimulus.
Now 511 million a year is a pig in the poke compared to the billions in bailouts AIG and their ilk got, but still, that whole 511 million is being spent on only 535 congressmen and senators. That’s nearly a million a piece. These are the same congress people, by the way, who already have the best personal healthcare plan on the planet.
It may not be a free market, but it looks like a certain group might get what it paid for.
America, ya gotta love it.