Friday, March 10, 2017

High Plateau Drifter: "Of War and Medicine"

Few seem to understand the real threat of globalism and why the U.S. generals opposed it by supporting Trump in the 2016 election. The answer is obvious if you think about it.

If one global government gains power over the entire planet there would be no need for national armies or navies to defend against other nations. A one world government would only need police - lots of police. The generals would be unemployed.

And that is why the generals jumped on the Trump campaign wagon. For them, globalism is a vastly more powerful threat than Russia to their careers and their institutions.

But a more immediate problem for the generals is their conflict with the CIA. The CIA has been financing and equipping proxy armies to fight wars, but of course the proxy armies cannot be controlled, go rogue, and the military must come in and fight the rogue armies that CIA created.

Those proxy wars in the middle east are a significant irritant but not a serious problem. But the CIA led and funded coup in Ukraine is the first CIA step toward destabilizing Russia itself, beginning with meddling in the Islamic areas of southern Russia and in national Russian politics, hoping to encroach into Russia proper from the South and ultimately stage a Maidan in Moscow.

The generals know that Russia has superb first strike nuclear weapons, superb air defenses and little else. A first strike would give Russia a huge advantage if Russia is left with no option other than war with the U.S. These CIA efforts to destabilize Russia and make it a vassal of the U.S. create a serious risk of a massive nuclear first strike. Russian ballistic missiles can reach the U.S. in half the time it takes for U.S. missiles to reach Russia. Their air defenses would also destroy some number of retaliating U.S. nukes.

The fact that the CIA could trigger an attack from Russia is alarming to the generals. Indeed, it is quite likely that they would be unaware of the provocation and that such an attack could take them entirely by surprise. And the fact that the generals now have a president they can trust with custody of the red button is but little comfort. Comforting perhaps as compared with war mongering Hillary in control of the red button, but providing no comfort whatever with respect to the decision tree in Moscow.

In fact, Russian leaders know perfectly well that the CIA is listening and it is highly likely that their conversations are staged to conceal the real breaking point at which Russia attacks. (Mass surveillance merely multiplies the opportunities to distract and confuse the entity that is doing the listening.)

Now consider Congress, which has the responsibility for establishing and monitoring the CIA. There are 535 of them, counting both House and Senate, so many that no individual is going to feel direct responsibility for, or take ownership of, what the CIA does. Each of them spends about 5 hours of each day dialing for dollars and related activities for contributors. He or she never reads legislation, having only time for summaries prepared by staff.

It is up to the president to fix the CIA and hope to survive the process. He will get no help from Congress.

Indeed, as those in Congress assiduously court their contributors every day, much the same disease infects the medical insurance debate. Medical insurance absorbs 35% of premiums collected in salaries and overhead of the insurance companies. Rising deductibles have none of the cost containment features that apply to insured amounts above those deductibles, and this causes hospitals to raise their retail prices to match the deductibles of each different policy issued in their service area, all tracked by computer.

Health insurance is a confidence game meant to strip wealth from the middle and upper middle class (The poor have Medicaid).

In order to make health care affordable, you must have a first dollar, "take it or leave it" payment for services, with only nominal deductibles of perhaps $50 per visit. Making health care affordable is easy, you just pass a law allowing people to purchase Medicare early, long before retirement. You copy the existing reimbursement schedules and price it by age according to actuarial tables, with higher rates for those with a body mass index above 30.

So why does Congress fail to do that which would benefit the vast majority of the people? Simple, it would utterly destroy the health insurance industry, a small and marginal industry with small and marginal political contributions. It's 35% vig would disappear and the gaming of higher deductibles and higher retail hospital charges to match would end.

Fear is the best way to maximize political contributions from vested interests and minimize the amount of time dialing for dollars. Spending five hours per day day dialing for dollars is proof of insufficient fear and insufficient respect among lobbyists and special interests. Congress should go ahead and wipe out the existing health insurance industry. The voters would love the cost savings, and fear among other special interests wishing to avoid the same fate would rise to the point where revenue would probably double.

The 435 House members are about the size of a reinforced infantry company, but obviously lacking in cooperation, self discipline, and strategic thinking. It is the special interests that should be calling the members. The fact that the members must do the calling (begging) is a clue to understand why our country is circling the drain.

5 comments:

High Plateau Drifter said...

I should note that RSXJ is correcting downward from its high at 41.93. Now at 36.8.

I will be reentering if it goes any lower.

Anonymous said...

Virtually any large problem is easy to solve when you're not the one tasked with solving it. Ask the fans of any sports team who could do better than the idiot coach...

Anonymous said...

(That said, not the worst idea in the world). As for global government, that's been a convenient bogeyman--and little more--for a century.

Anonymous said...

In order to make health care affordable, you must have a first dollar, "take it or leave it" payment for services, with only nominal deductibles of perhaps $50 per visit. Making health care affordable is easy, you just pass a law allowing people to purchase Medicare early, long before retirement. You copy the existing reimbursement schedules and price it by age according to actuarial tables, with higher rates for those with a body mass index above 30.

The CIA hates him! Conspiracy theorist discovers one weird trick to solving America's health care crisis.

whydibuy said...

I agree with the above anon.
Our resident conspiracy theorist not only knows intimately about internal authorities power struggles but he can solve the health care problem.
He is a classical example of a pseudo analysis who takes some minor spat info and extrapolates it into a full state conspiracy.

Health care comes down to people wanting something for nothing and that concept always fails.
They want miracle drugs but don't want to pay the billions of dollars required during the decades of research it takes to develop a helpful drug. They forget it takes highly educated and intelligent people to provide health care r&d, to be physicians, to develop the medical tech that they take for granted and think it came from the health care fairy. And those highly educated and intelligent people don't come cheap.