TWO FROM PAUL KRUGMAN:
KERRY'S HEALTH CARE PLAN,
DELAY'S EVIL MACHINATIONS

Two recent essays, courtesy of Eschaton, from the New York Times' good guy journalist who also happens to be a Princeton econmist. First, an analysis of the cost of Kerry's health care reform plan versus Bush's massive tax cuts for the rich:

Health Versus Wealth

Catastrophic health expenses, which can easily drive a family into bankruptcy, fall into the same category. Yet private insurers try hard, and often successfully, to avoid covering such expenses. (That's not a moral condemnation; they are, after all, in business.)

All this does is pass the buck: in the end, the Americans who can't afford to pay huge medical bills usually get treatment anyway, through a mixture of private and public charity. But this happens only after treatments are delayed, families are driven into bankruptcy and insurers spend billions trying not to provide care.

By directly assuming much of the risk of catastrophic illness, the government can avoid all of this waste, and it can eliminate a lot of suffering while actually reducing the amount that the nation spends on health care.

Still, the Kerry plan will require increased federal spending. Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University, an independent health care expert who has analyzed both the Kerry and Bush plans, puts the net cost of the plan to the federal government at $653 billion over the next decade. Is that a lot of money?

Not compared with the Bush tax cuts: the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that if these cuts are made permanent, as the administration wants, they will cost $2.8 trillion over the next decade.

Click here for the rest.

This really seems to be just about the only thing that the Feds can do about health care that wouldn't rouse the ire of the politically powerful insurance industry. Of course, the real way to go is with single-payer, but Korporate Kerry would never do anything like that, so...I guess his idea is better than nothing.

Next, Krugman gives the lowdown on what House Majority Leader Tom DeLay did to warrant a House Ethics Committe investigation:

Machine at Work

Here's the puzzle: if Mr. DeLay's brand of conservatism is so unpopular that it must be kept in the closet during the convention, how can people like him really run the party?

In Mr. DeLay's case, a large part of the answer is his control over corporate cash. As far back as 1996, one analyst described Mr. DeLay as the "chief enforcer of company contributions to Republicans." Some of that cash has flowed through Americans for a Republican Majority, called Armpac, a political action committee Mr. DeLay founded in 1994. By dispensing that money to other legislators, he gains their allegiance; this, in turn, allows him to deliver favors to his corporate contributors. Four of the five Republicans on the House ethics committee, where a complaint has been filed against Mr. DeLay, are past recipients of Armpac money.

The complaint, filed by Representative Chris Bell of Texas, contends, among other things, that Mr. DeLay laundered illegal corporate contributions for use in Texas elections. And that's where Enron enters the picture.

In May 2001, according to yesterday's Washington Post, Enron lobbyists in Washington informed Ken Lay via e-mail that Mr. DeLay was seeking $100,000 in additional donations to his political action committee, with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas." The Post says it has "at least a dozen" documents showing that Mr. DeLay and his associates directed money from corporate donors and lobbyists to an effort to win control of the Texas Legislature so the Republican Party could redraw the state's political districts.

Enron, which helped launch Armpac, was happy to oblige, especially because Mr. DeLay was helping the firm's effort to secure energy deregulation legislation, even as its traders boasted to one another about how they were rigging California's deregulated market and stealing millions each day from "Grandma Millie."

Click here for the rest.

This is yet another example of how America's democracy, always fragile, sometimes more responsive to the people, sometimes less, is now nothing but a massive corporate feeding trough for a ruthless gang of capitalist oink-oinks. DeLay's actions are simply the most extreme and agressive manifestation of the end of American democracy: virtually all of Congress is in on it; one cannot even be elected these days without the blessing of the US wealth sector, our true rulers.

Do people really believe that everything's going to be great if Kerry gets elected?


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