The Globe ran a big long cooingly congratulatory editorial on the state's new bullshit "universal insurance" law today.  

They did not reveal the legislation's new mascot and PR pointman, Bob the Boa Constrictor, so remember, you saw him here first!


Bob's job is to educate all those slackers out there who aren't doing their fair share, and of course to squeeze them (the government calls it a hug, but then why not choose a bear for a mascot?), and eventually to eat them alive.

Honestly, here's what I think.  The government should not be penalizing people who can't afford the outrageously high cost of basic healthcare by mandating that they pay what it's already well-established they can't afford. 

And I'm not only talking about those under the Federal Poverty Line—$9,804 for a single person, which in Massachusetts is about the annual cost of your daily Starbutt's grande single shot of non-fat caramel macchiato.  The least the state could've done is use realistic income criteria for their calculations.  Because the truth is, you're scraping by in Massachusetts even at 300% of the federal poverty level.

In a move reminiscent of Reagan's "welfare queens in Cadillacs" line, Governor Romney sold his plan by suggesting that those who weren't insured were mostly twenty-something slackers who could afford to be insured and were simply being irresponsible and insensitive to those of us who are insured, by not insuring themselves.  Who bought this line?  Massachusetts' Legislators and The Globe, apparently. 

This whole thing reminds me a little of the swooning over the new ICA building, which I guarantee in twenty years people will be like, "what the hell?  Gorgeous view of Anthony's Pier 4, anyway."  Massachusetts was so caught up in being the first state in the union to have what strictly speaking is "universal health insurance" that they were willing to overlook the fact that it's bullshit.

The truth is, Governors and legislators have great insurance plans.  The corporate workforce is doing OK for themselves, too.  Nothing much will change for them.  It's the retail workers and those forced into part-time or temp jobs without adequate coverage, whose wages are low already and whose employers want to keep them that way, who will bear the extra burden of the new legislation.   

But as with the Welfare Queens of old, the new slackers have no one to blame but themselves.  It is society's duty to demand that they require more of themselves!   The new penalties for going without insurance will hit them where it hurts, but as The Globe editorial says, "that's tough, but it's necessary to change the behavior of people who are used to going without insurance."  This is not just a piece of legislation, it's a piece of social engineering we're talking about here. 

We're always conscientiously trying to teach the lower income brackets, but they simply refuse to learn!  It's very sad.  I mean, why aren't they taking advantage of all the wonderful opportunities we're basically handing them on a silver platter?  I know some people think it's because they're just born stupid, but I don't think anyone is born stupid.  It must be because they're lazy. 

Because obviously Massachusetts provides them with superlative public schools, at no cost.  In quaint, affordable, lovely little safe neighborhoods.  From there they can go to public university almost for free (I mean, what's a paltry $18,000 a year—next to nothing, really, even when your annual income is half that).  

Massachusetts is the land of opportunity for poor people, which is, come to think of it, probably why their numbers are growing.  They're so successful at being poor here that more and more of them are flocking to the state to take advantage of it!

Well you know what they say:  give a man a fish and he's fed for a day, but teach a man to fish... And that's what this new law is meant to do.  Those lower income slackers may not appreciate it at first, but it's really a gift to them.  The gift of responsibility.

Not that we expect their big box employers to bear any, with that laughable $295 penalty.  But never mind.  

For me, the most appalling thing about the new law is that no actual participant in this process that I know of had the balls to ask what the Sam Hill is going on with the cost of healthcare in this country.  Or why the hell we're paying so much more than anyone else in the world for drugs.  And why the pharmaceutical companies are marketing new "health problems"— RLS anyone?—to push new pills down the throats of our neurotic society, and then justifying the high cost of necessary medications by pointing to all the new ones they're producing.

Economists like Charles Wheelan tell us that healthcare costs are soaring partly because "we grant patent protection — a legal monopoly — to pharmaceutical companies for breakthrough medication. The more impressive the drug, the more the company can charge, regardless of the actual cost of producing the pill. Yes, those prices are high, and the profits can be huge — which is exactly what creates the incentive to discover such drugs in the first place."

It's the classic argument from the pharmaceutical lobby that the high cost of meds goes right back into R&D. If you want medical advancements you have to pay the price.  Well, far be it from me to suggest that wonderdrugs like Viagra have not been worth the price.  My quality of life has improved markedly since their introduction.

Wheeler doesn't diss the pharmaceuticals for trendspotting. Healthcare is, after all, a "luxury good," which, he explains, "is a technical term in economics. It refers to any good that wealthy people demand in disproportionately greater amounts than less wealthy people."  What he means, of course, is that wealthy people tend to have too much money and time on their hands, and because they're sitting around not busying themselves adequately, they start thinking they might have RLS, and want a new, pretty pink pill to pop. 

"Consuela!  Be a dear and bring me my pink pill and a little glass of agua, por favor!"
 
So, in fact, those of us who don't have money or time to sit around being neurotic about our imaginary healthcare crises are subsidizing the rich by paying higher prices on necessary meds so that pharmaceutical companies can invest in R&D and marketing blitzkriegs for their unnecessary meds.  It's more corporate welfare. 

But even unnecessary meds for more or less imaginary conditions (or semi-imaginary or psychosomatic conditions—from IBS to acid reflux—that could as easily be treated with lifestyle changes with no nasty side effects, or real conditions that are simply part of the human condition and must be borne by us) have real life-threatening, traumatizing, and, yes, deadly side-effects.

Think of Prempro, the hormone replacement therapy from Wyeth Pharmaceutical used to alleviate menopausal symptoms that was recently linked to breast cancer. Their marketing campaign didn't ask, "which would you rather have: hot flashes or heart disease, breast cancer, stroke, blood clots and dementia?" But it should have. Even the claim that Prempro might prevent osteoporosis is now being questioned. 

(For a list of "unsafe drugs" currently targeted in legal suits, check out legalview.com.)
 
Even my father's lung cancer treatments—some meds cost in the thousands for a single dose—neither improved nor lengthened his life in the end—but they were aggressively pushed on us by his doctors.  Alternatives to these meds are often not offered unless explicitly requested by the patient, who is in an extremely vulnerable state and susceptible to suggestion.  If you ever have the misfortune of going through the slow-motion car-crash of a terminal cancer diagnosis, God forbid, you will understand why this underhanded method of drug-pushing is so widespread and effective.

And yet, the government doesn't dare suggest what anyone with even cursory experience of our healthcare system knows:  that the system—from suppliers to providers—from the insurance firm to the emergency room—is broken. 

And Massachusetts' much lauded new law does nothing at all to fix it by penalizing folks in lower income brackets who have no choice but to depend on it.