Please see this and comment , interviw him . .IF it hasn’t been covered before.
I have no idea how to or I would.
Thanks /AJ

In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get nowhere.

The last couple of decades has seen an even more perverted version of that with the financial sector (mostly) and the health care/insurance sector getting all the profits. I mean ALL. It wasn’t long ago someone posted an article about how many companies in America which weren’t paying ANY taxes because they simply weren’t making profits. It was astounding by itself and I doubt anyone realized how it was possible. Now we know. All the profits were going to Wall St. and the health sector.

So, what are the effects of this model which are really giving us trouble?

First there are the obvious things which have been discussed for a long time: too much money in the political system gives the Rich disproportionate representation and the poor live on the edge and go bankrupt at a moment’s notice.

Well, another effect involves not just the Rich individuals (and their families), but the Corporations. Corporate wealth outstrips everything and when a business owner has a product he wants to make a lot of profits from, then he’s going to want to sell it to the government or corporations. Pricing it involves determining how much they have which they might consider parting with for this product. It isn’t related to the cost of production, only to what the market will pay.

But, what the gov’t and corporations might pay is much more than you or I could pay.

So, when you go on a trip and buy airline tickets or rent a car or hotel room or eat at a nice restaurant you’re going to have to work for a corporation and have an expense account since you will find it difficult, as an individual, to pay. They’re priced for a corporation to pay. Corporations have deep pockets.

In the health care area Repubs try to say it’s the jury awards which hit deep pockets and drive prices up. That’s been found to be negligible.

But, if you consider the difference between an individual paying for a doctor’s visit or for insurance versus a corporation’s ability to get group insurance rates then there is something to notice. Corporations have money, so how is an insurance company going to price a group plan for the corps employees? Naturally a large group would allow them to price it lower. But, they want to sock the corp for all the money in the world, so that just won’t do.

To price a corp group plan higher they have to price an individual plan much much much higher.

That makes individual insurance impossibly high. But, they don’t care since they get the corporate group plan deal and and get to charge very high rates. We pay about 20% (as a country) more than other places.

Then, on top of that, don’t pay doctors what they ask? Why? It forces doctors to charge higher rates, so that when they get back 85% (or whatever insurers pay these days) they end up with what they want. Why is that a problem?

Doctors get what they want, but the really high prices they have to charge allows insurers to tell customers that health care is more expensive than it really is. A little sleight of the hand and everything looks more expensive. Of course, they don’t tell you they’ll pocket 30% of that.

Competition in the business is important, but some of these other problems are clearly due to the disparity in wealth of corporations & the Rich and all the peons.

We must give ordinary people more wealth to at least provide them a shock absorber against sudden downturns. More fair would be to let their wealth grow as the nation’s grows. Health care reform is just the first step in correcting the system.

If we can hitch more people’s wagons to the financial growth of the country, then we might close the gap without having to increase taxes punitively. That’s why I also recommend (after the health reform is absorbed into the system) that everyone should have savings accounts which accumulate automatically. It isn’t just for retirement or to enable people to invest, it’s to let them sequester more wealth from the everyday economy the way Rich people do — put it into investments for any eventuality.

Healthcare reform.
Financial sector reform.
Energy Green revolution.
Perhaps tax reform.
Corp executive pay reform.
Universal savings/investment accounts.
Easier unionization.
Fair international trade.

There’s a lot to do.

Va health care system, Tricare (military dependents & stateside stationed active military, Medicare and Medicaid are the “single payer” government run. And they are some of the most well run systems.