It's a Cold World in Stosselville

        The thing about John Stossel is that, apparently, he thinks that you'll believe everything he says without thinking too much as you read. A recent column starts (dare I say it?) on a note with which I completely concur, and continues right up until the last several paragraphs upon which his "choo choo jumps the tracks",  as the lovely, but lethal, Roxie Hart would have said.

       He begins with what I think is one of the few humorous aspects of the  DC train wreck that is the new Administration. That would, of course, be the Far Right's quandary  regarding the Affordable  Care Act. Having tried for five years to kill it, solely because it was colloquially known as "Obamacare,"  they now realize that they may well become villains if they do. Funny how once people actually have health care insurance they get accustomed to it, no?  Stossel's point,  being Stossel after all, is that, for some, the Affordable care Act is a "subsidy." Truth told, he is partially correct. This by extension, overlooks the fact that  much of US health care is subsidized in one form or another;  more on that later. But, admittedly, for those whose earnings are insufficient to fully pay for their own health care insurance, yes, the ACA is a subsidy.

        Then in a sort of left turn, Stossel actually spends much of the rest of the op-ed addressing another and far more unfair genre of  subsidies. That would be the continuing and disgraceful subsidies, enacted during the Depression and continuing today, for  agricultural and similar production.  Along the way to Agriculture, Stossel describes both "DOEs" (Energy and Education) as subsidies in form, a point which could be argued, but in light of the current SecEd could be correct, since Mrs. DeVos has as much as said that she would subsidize religious schools with public funds if given the opportunity. Stossel laments the fact that Reagan actually supported increased education funding!

        The same may well be said to apply to tax incentives and exclusions for various energy companies, although fuel prices adjusted for CPI changes are at historic lows. In an aside, note that the Gingriches and Bachmanns who predicted $10 per gallon gas if Obama was elected or reelected have been notably reticent to discuss the error of their ways.  Either way, the real meat of the article is agricultural subsidies, which as I have detailed elsewhere at length are a national welfare program aimed, not at low income persons in need, but at some of our more affluent citizens (and corporations).  

           There have been farm subsidies in the USA since the Depression. Their "necessity" has been debated long and hard and the considerations , especially in some areas are a source of concern as they cost the nation more for food than a free market would command. A parallel concern is that they reward what are in many cases big agribusinesses with the tax dollars of the rest of us. In the case of corn and ethanol production mandates, they reward corn producers with a guaranteed market at a guaranteed price, a "sweetheart deal" no other American production sector (other than agriculture) is provided.

       In a rare swipe at the Right, Stossel accurately describes the economic and political mess that is the Big Sugar industry in America. Sugar subsidies are a national disgrace, and unlike corn subsidies which actually tend to insure more corn than we need grown domestically, since there is no foreign competitive "cheap" corn producer,   sugar subsidies limit the amount of cheap sugar available  by restricting the amount of imported sugar allowed. This has the effect of making literally everything made in the USA using cane sugar more expensive. How much more? Sugar import limits make the price of cane sugar in America somewhere in the 30%  higher than free market range.

       A prime example is  Coca Cola, made everywhere else with cane sugar, but in the US with corn sweetener, strictly as a cost issue.  Remember the abortion that was "New Coke?"  That was not about any dissatisfaction with the "old" formula, still tucked safely away in that Atlanta bank vault, but rather about masking any possible customer reaction to shifting to corn sweetener. Of course, "by popular demand" back came the "Old Coke" now sweetened with corn sugar, but with the original just a dim memory, too far gone to remember for comparison.

        Likewise, Stossel remarks on the singularly ludicrous "Mohair" subsidy. Really? Really! The problem here is that apparently he makes no differentiation whatsoever between needs based subsidies to enable people to remain alive who might otherwise not be able to do so, and categorical subsidies to rich and, in many cases, corporate interests which simply increase their profit margins

       But then, because we knew he would, because we knew he has to, being John Stossel, he took a hard right turn into the wall, by equating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to "handouts  and entitlements."  His rationale for Medicare being a "handout" is based on his assertion,  correct but with grossly misplaced accusations, that the cost of healthcare grossly exceeds what most of us have paid  into Medicare. As true as this is, one might point out that we all pay or have paid precisely what the law has required. If that is deemed  insufficient, then there are but two real avenues of redress, the first, but wrong and unpopular in Biblical proportions,  would be to increase Medicare premiums.

       The second would be to address the real reason for the incredible cost of Health Care in America. In short summary, as I have addressed this issue in several previous blogs, consider Big Pharma, multiple billing, "for profit" healthcare as an industry, vice a national priority and finally, look to the 2006 Act which created Medicare part D. This "gift to Big Pharma" mandates that Medicare must always pay the asking price for all drugs. This law means that the Epi-pen (to choose a drug whose name resonates) which costs $300 with a coupon from the manufacturer, and even far less in many insurance drug plans, will cost taxpayers the full $650 or so. The VA, however, which isn't precluded from bargaining drug costs by law pays between 40 to 58% less for ALL drugs. So Stossel has a point, but points the finger at us Medicare "handout recipients," many of whom make in a month what about he spends on a suit, as the greedy leeches on the social animal. Why would he do that? Because John Stossel has whored himself to all things conservative just as Marco Rubio has whored himself to Big Sugar interests.

       In like manner, Stossel also stoops to characterizing  Social Security as a "handout." There is little need for pointing out the error of this statement as it relates to the vast majority of Americans, who work for forty years or so, pay into the system and get back a return that is relatively modest. Of course Stossel would probably favor privatization, so "his kind of people"  can make a profit.  

His last "handout" claim - Medicaid - is justified only because many Americans still cannot afford, or do not have, any healthcare insurance.  Of course, an even larger handout is the cost to all the rest of us, insured or not, in paying the cost of ER treatment for these folks, under a Reagan era law, and a humane one, which prohibits denying care to anyone.  A subset of that, with which I am conversant, having had both  parents live long lives and both of them in long term care facilities for several years, is that even 3/4 of a million dollars in savings, as well as employer provided health insurance incentives  is insufficient at today's obscene cost scales to cover such treatment for very long.  One is left with the "impoverish grandma" scenario, before Medicaid will cover expenses.

       Interestingly enough,  John Stossel's last book is entitled "No they can't!" Why Government fails - But individuals succeed" Of course it bears little real resemblance to reality, which is that for a nation of 300 millions plus, individual efforts, while perhaps noble, are simply too miniscule in scale to care for those who, for whatever reason, aren't retiring with $110 + annually and healthcare for life. This is, in many cases,  the sophomoric resort of many, who like Stossel, subscribe to the school of thought which is "If I could do it, why can't everybody else?" Libertarians love this stuff, as it allows them to shed that last vestige of conscience, sort of like the Ron Paul supporters who yelled "let 'em die," when the subject of health care arose in a debate.   As a social liberal, I see this as more likely the "I've got mine- f**k you" school of human interaction.

          A close second rationale , for a disturbing number of Libertarians and Far Right Republicans of the current stripe, seems to be that all this applies as an inverse  multiple  function of  how many differences there are between what you are and what they think you should be. If there are two degrees of difference (religion and race, for example), then you are only 1/4 as deserving as if Caucasian , Native born and Evangelical Christian. Throw in immigrant and gay and the number is only 1/8. It is a cold, unforgiving and unconcerned world out there in Stosselville!