Capitalism.

The pundits keeps saying that we need to run government like a business, when they really mean, “let’s raid the Treasury”.

I think it’s time to deal with rising health care costs by using the principles of capitalism, rather than corporatism. First, we need to discover the most efficient health insurance model in the US, and that one is easy. Robert Reich points out that Medicare isn’t the problem. It’s the solution.

At an overhead cost of less than 5%, regular Medicare is the most efficient health care insurance in the US. It isn’t even close. Medicare Parts A and B are the best model for health insurance – it is a simple, demonstrable fact.

Now, Medicare Part C, the so-called Medicare Advantage, is not as efficient. The Trust Fund has to pay 12% more for people in Part C, than those in standard Medicare. The reason is simple, it involves the private sector, and the private sector wants to make profits. So, from a business perspective, Part C should be phased out with everyone put into the cheaper standard Medicare. Given that there are about 10 million people in the program, that extra 12% is a significant amount of money. Part C was supposed to save money, but like all privatizations efforts, it ended up being more expensive.

The last part of Medicare is Part D, the drug program, and it is a total mess. It is another privatization project that is totally inefficient and outrageously expensive. It needs to be totally restructured as a government program, like standard Medicare, that negotiates for drug prices using the power of the 50 million enrollees, just like any other business. That’s how things are done in the capitalist system. Since the DoD and VA also have medical programs and need to buy drugs, they should be combined with the Medicare program to give the negotiators real clout when they are buying from all of the foreign corporations that now manufacture the drugs for the American market. If the process works for WalMart, it would be silly not to use it for Medicare. Of course, you have to favor capitalism to accept that.

Even in Canada.

The CBC reports on a new study on corporate tax cuts in Canada:

With the future of federal corporate tax cuts playing a role in the election campaign, a new study says the planned reductions will not stimulate the economy.

A new report from the labour-oriented Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a non-profit research organization, suggests historic trends show businesses’ fixed capital spending has declined as a share of GDP and as a share of corporate cash flow since the early 1980s, despite a series of federal and provincial corporate tax cuts.

If you cut taxes, corporation won’t invest the extra money, they will hand it out as dividends or buy back stock. When management is rewarded based on profits, it would not be logical for them to reduce their profits by building new facilities. The system is totally focused on this quarter, not the future.

The BBC carries a report that is no more unusual than a “family values” Republican being charge with a sex crime: Israel’s Lieberman closer to corruption charges

Israel’s attorney general is considering charging Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman with corruption.

An indictment on charges of fraud, money laundering, breach of trust, and tampering with a witness was being drafted, the justice ministry said.

Mr Lieberman will have a chance to argue his case in a final hearing before a charge sheet is issued.

Come on, he’s a right-wing Israeli politician, of course he’s corrupt. He carefully responds that he “followed the law” and not that he did nothing wrong. Standard phrasing to indicate that any crimes he may have committed were simply errors in interpretation of the law, not an “actual crime”.

If he resigns after being charged, as he has said he would, than Israel will probably have to call an election.