Public Option Politics

by publius

The latest Post/ABC poll shows that Americans continue to favor a public option.  Indeed, the public option is getting more popular -- the poll shows that support has rebounded since the summer, thanks in no small part to committed liberal activists.

The fact that the public option is genuinely popular should make it easier for conservative Democrats to support it (or at least to tolerate it).  But that all depends, of course, on why exactly they've been skeptical in the first place.  Have these Dems been opposing it for "good" reasons or "bad" ones?

The "good" reasons for opposing the public option is simply the fear that voters will punish them.  Polls like this, however, should go a long way is softening this type of skepticism.

The "bad" reasons, however, for opposing the public option is simply to protect rich insurance companies, whose practices over the past 20 years have been morally unacceptable, even if they've been economically rational.  Today's poll won't help with these kind of skeptics, but we can now at least clearly identify who they are.  It's not going to work anymore to say things like "the public option is not politically possible."  Today's poll shows otherwise.

Accordingly, we should assume from this point on that any continued opposition by Democrats is essentially prostitution on behalf of insurance companies.

Comments

[cleek]

It's not going to work anymore to say things like "the public option is not politically possible." Today's poll shows otherwise.

you assume reps want to represent the public. that's not a safe assumption, IMO.

[Sebastian]

What exactly is 'the public option' that is being polled for here? There are all sorts of 'public options' I would support (the much hated state plans so we can figure out what actually works for example) and lots that I wouldn't. I would support a public plan that operates transparently and which has premiums set at revenue neutral levels. (The plan itself shouldn't get opaque subsidies or we won't ever be able to figure out how effective it is. We can offer subsidies to people who can't afford it as a separate line item).

I hate polls on terms that don't really clarify anything.

But while you are using this one: "Overall, 45 percent of Americans favor the broad outlines of the proposals now moving in Congress, while 48 percent are opposed, about the same division that existed in August, at the height of angry town hall meetings over health-care reform. Seven in 10 Democrats back the plan, while almost nine in 10 Republicans oppose it. Independents divide 52 percent against, 42 percent in favor of the legislation."

For whatever that is worth. As I'm not even sure what counts as "the broad outlines of the proposals now moving in Congress" and I'm a policy wonk. (How do you even poll that when many of the broad outlines of the proposals now moving in Congress are contradictory?)

[publius]

that's a fair question seb

[David A]

I think you have to know how the issue polls with likely voters in that Congressperson's district or Senator's state before you can say they have no reason to fear voters will punish them.

[jonnybutter]

What exactly is 'the public option' that is being polled for here?

This is a fair point, but not very meaningful. Of course most voters don't follow congress very carefully (and who can blame them? Our 'system' actually discourages engagement). I would hazard a guess: most people probably favor the idea of a public option wherein if private insurance gets too expensive anybody can buy a non-profit public plan. That what's actually on the table in DC is a mere shadow of that basic concept doesn't change the meaning of public sentiment. IOW, that congress isn't reflecting the public will is not, in this case, a problem with the public. The problem is that congress sucks (and yes Marty, Dems too).

[tgirsch]

publius/Sebastian:

What exactly is 'the public option' that is being polled for here?

Amy Walter of The National Journal took up this subject a couple of weeks ago, with mixed results. But ironically, the type of public option that gets the most support is one that is considerably stronger than anything that's actually being proposed -- a public option that would be open to everyone, even those who currently have insurance. But even that support is very volatile depending upon how the questions are phrased.

Stats-master Nate Silver wrote about those perils back in August.

[tgirsch]

David A:

Some polling seems to indicate that the "public option" is actually fairly popular in Blue Dog districts.

[The Gay Species]

Like most readers, I support a "public option," but none that Congress has crafted.

In order for the "public option" to succeed, it must operate competitively with insurance companies, without tax-payer subsidies. With parity, then consumers will have a genuine choice.

Now, I favor "subsidies" of premiums for the poor, but only if they are "visible" to all parties, and only as reimbursement. None of the congressional plans come close to this general conception.

[cleek]

Now, I favor "subsidies" of premiums for the poor, but only if they are "visible" to all parties, and only as reimbursement.

a reimbursement doesn't help people who can't afford to pay the premium in the first place.

[Sebastian]

I don't agree that it needs to be a reimbursement. It just needs to have separation from the plan itself so that we can make meaningful comparisons and analysis about how effective the government plan is. If the government subsidy is built into the plan itself, we can never really tell how the plan is doing.

[Marty]

Publius,

It is clear that many would like a public plan, and I will repeat HCR is a fait accompli. Now the rhetoric needs to stay dialed back so it doesn't become apparent that there is no value in the public option for the vast majority of Americans, then they may sneak that in at the end also.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

rich insurance companies, whose practices over the past 20 years have been morally unacceptable, even if they've been economically rational

Do you mean that the practices produce results that we as a society find unacceptable, or that the companies are conducting their business without integrity? There is some of the latter, but it seems to me the problem is more the former. Bad faith coverage denials are still more the exception than the rule for most carriers, I think. But even if a carrier is honest and meticulous in carrying out its contracts, carriers are in business soley to make money, they are pretty much unaccountable to the individual policy holders, and the results of that system are pretty unpleasant.

Public competition may help some with that, but only if people can vote with their feet. So long as most people are stuck with their employer's insurance carrier, they're going to get treated as costs, not patients.

[tgirsch]

Sebastian:

My understanding is that this is how the public option will actually work. The subsidies will go directly to low-income families to help them buy coverage, and there's no requirement that they use such subsidies to buy the public option. If they prefer to put them toward a private plan, they may do so.

The public option as currently proposed will have to be revenue-neutral, except for some initial startup costs.

[Marty]

"rich insurance companies, whose practices over the past 20 years have been morally unacceptable, even if they've been economically rational"
I do believe that the insurance companies provide a service. Around the edges HCR will correct some abuses but they are the bathwater. The public option won't improve on the contract vs noncontracted issues. Medicare has those same limitations today.

[low-tech cyclist]

publius asks: Have these Dems been opposing it for "good" reasons or "bad" ones?

The real question, I think, is: can their reasons be changed? I've got at least a hope that the answer is Yes.

Here's the deal: as long as health care reform was a long way from the finish line, it made sense for corporate whores within the Democratic Party to sabotage its progress in whatever way they could - by drawing out the game, by bogus objections, by weakening the bill, you name it.

But as the odds of a signing ceremony for a health care reform bill approach certainty, the game changes.

As I've been saying for awhile, if health care reform passes, the 2010 midterms are largely going to turn on who's more persuasive: Dems telling the voters, "Look what we've done for you," or GOP candidates telling the voters, "Look what they've done to you."

The more likely it is that the Dems will pass a bill, the more Dems will have to ask themselves which side of that argument looks better - and what needs to be done to the bill to make their side of the argument more persuasive.

And that means higher subsidies, lower out-of-pocket costs, and a strong public option - both to help pay for it all, and to make the point that you're not forcing people to buy the insurance companies' product.

Maybe I'm fooling myself. We'll see.

[chmood]

Marty: "I do believe that the insurance companies provide a service. "

Indeed. But at what cost? The destabilization of the entire economy? Are insurance companies sacred? Should they and their ever-growing profits be protected, even as the 'service' they provide shrinks in both scope and value?

Certainly, there are those who believe that such cyclopean industries ARE sacred, and that their harvesting of the populace must be protected, even as the mortgage companies must (apparently) be allowed to evict a substantial portion of the citizenry; yet the damage done to those who famously do the bulk of the living, working and dying strikes a blow against every principle on which the nation was founded ("capitalist megaliths must be permitted to feed off the people, no matter the cost" was never one of those principles).

If that is the nation we wish to live in - a nation in which the rich own all, and harvest the people for their further aggrandizement - so be it: but it is not the nation we claim to want, it's not the nation so many have bled and died to protect...and it's not the nation we had during the know-nothings' much-mourned "good old days".

Still, it is a natural outgrowth of wage-slavery, which defeated chattel-slavery so soundly in the Civil War. If we will not recognize the bondage into which we've sold ourselves (all hail E-Z Credit!), we will sink further into the mire, until there are *only* the owners, only the rich - and the immigrants who don't yet know they've bought a lie deeper than the one we bought ourselves.

Soylent Green is *US*...until we have the balls to cry "Hold! Enough!"

[Marty]

chmood,

Bypassing the wage slavery indictment applicable to any company in a capitalist economy, at what cost is not a product of the insurance companies.

The ever increasing cost of insurance is a product of the ever increasing cost of healthcare delivery. When delivery stops increasing in cost then I will vigorously denounce growing costs of insurance.

I am sure to many that I sound like a broken record, but insurance isn't our problem. It is just a place to blame a big industry because that plays better in Peoria.

Healthcare costs are the problem and who wants to blame the doctors?

I hope they pass something to get more people insured (by the government or private insurers) soon, so we might actually talk about reducing the rate of increase in healthcare costs at some point.

Then we can talk about tort reform and all those things Republicans want to do that might address HealthCare Reform, rather than payment reform.

[The Gay Species]

Cleek writes:

"a reimbursement doesn't help people who can't afford to pay the premium in the first place."

I fully agree, so what do YOU suggest? "Free Health Care for All," as if money grows on government's trees? Pelosi's plan would bankrupt the nation before it could get to the China "discount window," the other Congressional plans simply endow Insurance and Pharmaceutical Companies ($80B for Barry, $654B for Max) on the wishful thinking that THEIR plans will save Medicare and Medicaid money.

I don't believe in the "tooth fairy," nor do I believe the U.S. can afford anymore debt that it already has. SOMETHING has to give, and since IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN won't, we'll have to DO WITHOUT. Pastor Obama preached before his Plutocracy this very afternoon, raising only a smidgeon of what G.W.B. and his bellicose warriors delivered, but Democrats have NOT enacted any financial reforms in NINE MONTHS, because their appeasing their "constituencies" to quote HRH Nancy of Romper Room.

Apparently, the trough can run dry, as long as the DNC gets its Wall Street highs. Praise Obama for his Sermons on the Mount of Wall Street and . . . . why did WE elect him?

[Nate]

Marty: "Then we can talk about tort reform and all those things Republicans want to do that might address HealthCare Reform, rather than payment reform."

I know this was beaten to death on the other thread, but seriously, what are "all those things Republicans want to do", besides the chimera of "tort reform"? Especially since the problems "tort reform" is supposed to address can be better dealt with by getting at the real roots of malpractice and lifetime health care costs, instead of just making it harder to sue or adding arbitrary caps on damages.

[chmood]

Marty, "cost" and "price" are not the same; by the same token, you seem indifferent to the role insurance costs play in driving up delivery costs. Perhaps a slower, more contemplative reading would serve?

And on the subject of inattention, my reference to wage-slavery seems to have completely escaped you: I was not referring to "any company in a capitalist society", but to the economy as a whole (or do you think that the chattel-slavery economy was some loopy Maoist "workers' paradise"?)

We have a bizarre sort of blindness in the US regarding "labor": we whole-heartedly support the knee-jerk commoditization of "labor" as dictated by the entirely-too-well-thought-of Adam Smith, even as we fret over the declining value and security of our own labor, and it's impact on our employability, our self-worth, and our ability to provide for ourselves and our families. It's a form of schizophrenic self-loathing that allows us to struggle so hard to avoid being screwed - even as we fight to "prove ourselves" to our employers by helping them screw others just like us.

[Marty]

"Marty, "cost" and "price" are not the same; by the same token, you seem indifferent to the role insurance costs play in driving up delivery costs. Perhaps a slower, more contemplative reading would serve?"

The "cost" of healthcare delivery is going up, the "price" is also going up. The "price" hasn't actually kept pace with the "cost" (this is from my experience in the industry) so cost is the problem.

A slower and more contemplative reading leads me to conclude that you continue to blame rising "prices" of healthcare on insurance companies, which is not close to accurate.

As for the rest, the US has decided to tax every dollar over 250k more than lower dollars. This is the heart of small companies and people starting their own businesses.

If we decide anyone who wants to make more than that by hard work and personal sacrifice should be treated in word and tax law as the wealthy "other" then we certainly will continue to create the ability for the wealthiest to get wealthier with little competition.

All of that has little to do with the point that insurance companies aren't the problem with healthcare costs, or prices.

[Marty]

"Especially since the problems "tort reform" is supposed to address can be better dealt with by getting at the real roots of malpractice and lifetime health care costs, "

beforee I answer I need to understand what this means. Because this statement confuses me. Does it mean that the only thing people sue for is lifetime healthcare costs?

I swear I am not being snarky, I don't know what it means.

[Nate]

Not completely, Marty, but that's what a large part of the damage rewards are. And lost wages/jobs. The other reason for many of the "frivolous" malpractice suits though is discovery, to find out what actually happened, since the doctors and hospitals often deny access to the records needed to find out if there was actual negligence.

Both of which could be better addressed by more openness, and things to ensure that people won't be bankrupt for life because of something like that.

[Jesurgislac]

This is the heart of small companies and people starting their own businesses.

While provision of universal health care is the best support the government can have for people starting their own business, self-employed people, and small companies.

The current system of health insurance in the US strongly favors large corporate employers over start-ups and self-employed. It's anti-entrepreneurial, as well as inhumane...

[cleek]

I fully agree, so what do YOU suggest?

the Canadian system.

dicking around with the mess we have now is absurd.

[Marty]

"The current system of health insurance in the US strongly favors large corporate employers over start-ups and self-employed. It's anti-entrepreneurial, as well as inhumane..."

The current system favors large corporations, although they pay a lot also. But the new bill doesn't provide any subsidies to those same people, might give them a short term break.

Jes, Can you lay off the inhumane comment on everything. We all get it, the NHS is perfect, the UK has no problems, America is bad.

We are working on this problem, it probably won't be as perfect as the UK system since, as you say, we are still working on the beta form of democracy.

Your opinions, and quite often your facts, add a lot. The constant need to just add that little dig is annoying. I don't want to debate this, it is a request. All, of course, IMHO only.

[Carleton Wu]

The "good" reasons for opposing the public option is simply the fear that voters will punish them. Polls like this, however, should go a long way is softening this type of skepticism.

In fairness, conservative Dems may oppose a public option on principle as well- they aren't immediately lobbyist whores if they disagree with you (and me).

[Carleton Wu]

As for the rest, the US has decided to tax every dollar over 250k more than lower dollars. This is the heart of small companies and people starting their own businesses.

Pretty sure Ive had this conversation on ObWi a couple times- if you're running your small business and taking home 250k in profit (ie after operating costs, reinvesting, etc), then you're very well-off.
As for "starting their own businesses" and immediately taking home 250k, that sounds like a late-night infomercial. :)

[Marty]

"then you're very well-off."

As long as you don't reinvest that money in the business, or another one. It is called being an entrepeneur. The heart of our real economic growth for decades. So do we want Walmart or these kind of companies? It is the worst kind of class divisiveness.

[jonnybutter]

I do believe that the insurance companies provide a service.

This is, strictly speaking, true, but in a larger sense it really isn't. If every road in the country was a private toll road, you could say that the toll companies do 'provide a service', but that doesn't justify such a system. Health insurance companies actually are just middlemen - they are hardly indispensable providers of anything.

[Marty]

"they are hardly indispensable providers of anything."

They are only dispensable if you replace them with another insurer. someone manages the pool of money. Some want it to be the government but that still means there is an insurer.

They are actually providers of management of the pool of money that gets redistributed. The provide payment services, they provide collection services, investment services, they provide risk evaluation and management. The services they provide are indispensable, even if they aren't.

[Davebo]

As long as you don't reinvest that money in the business, or another one.

If you reinvest it in the business you didn't take it home.

[jonnybutter]

The services they provide are indispensable, even if they aren't.

Is this what you meant originally, though? I could be wrong, but I sensed another implicit meaning...

[Marty]

"Is this what you meant originally, though? I could be wrong, but I sensed another implicit meaning..."

I don't imply much, I am not really that subtle. People keep saying they don't do anything, they do. If they went away tomorrow it would be a problem.

[Tony P.]

Marty,

You were getting on a plane to somewhere when I last asked you this question, so I cannot blame you for having missed it. However, I can keep asking it until you either answer it, or acknowledge that you don't want to. The question is, which side are you on?

There are three sides:
People (who pay premiums and taxes)
Insurers (including the government)
Doctors (and other providers of medical goods and services)

By simple arithmetic, P = I + D .
That is, the total money People pay is the total money Insurers and Doctors can split between themselves.

No matter how much faith you have in the free market, or the spirit of entrepreneurship, or whatever, I assume you do not deny simple arithmetic. I assume you understand that dollars do not materialize out of thin air. I assume you agree that the aggregate income of Doctors (meaning, the producers of medical goods and services) comes out of what People spend (in premiums and taxes) on "health care" -- after the Insurers take their cut.

So, unless you want People to pay more, you have to choose: should the share of money going to Insurers go up at the expense of Doctors, or vice versa? Answer me that, and then we can discuss which policy would bring about your preferred outcome.

--TP

[JanieM]

Off topic, but Marty, in case you didn't see it on the open thread you can email

[email protected]

for details of our Boston-area ObWi get-together on 10/28.

Hope to see you!

[Marty]

"People (who pay premiums and taxes)
Insurers (including the government)
Doctors (and other providers of medical goods and services)"

Easy, I am for people. However, the insurers and doctors are required to dliver healthcare so it is a false choice. I want the doctors, who are people, to get paid fairly. I want the insurance companies, who employ a lot of people I like having jobs, to do a better job and get paid fairly. I want to pay as little is necessary to have great healthcare.

I am sure we will get some of all of that, thats reality.

[Marty]

Janie,

I did see it but I am oot on the 28th. I was pretty disappointed. Next time.

[Tony P.]

No, Marty. Doctors deliver health care. Insurers deliver a financial service.

For a given P, you can get more D if and only if you reduce I.
For a given D, you need less P if and only if you reduce I.

So, if you are "for people", I can only imagine you want People to get more Doctors for constant money, or you want People to pay less money for constant Doctors. Either of those requires reducing the cut going to Insurers. Are you denying that?

--TP

[Carleton Wu]

As long as you don't reinvest that money in the business, or another one. It is called being an entrepeneur.

That was my point, ergo the bold tags on profit. Small businesses don't pay taxes on the money they reinvest, just on the money they take out (as income or profits). There are some exceptions here, but for the most part that's how it works.
They also get some pretty tasty writeoffs eg depreciation on assets.

There's this false impression that people get who haven't worked around small businesses that they pay the corporate tax rate on income. People who've been around small businesses know that the real bugbear is double taxation (ie taxation on corporate profits and then a second round of taxes when taken as personal income).

[Jesurgislac]

However, the insurers and doctors are required to dliver healthcare so it is a false choice.

Insurers don't deliver healthcare. Indeed, part of the issue that that insurers make their profits out of not delivering healthcare...

I want to pay as little is necessary to have great healthcare.

Go for a National Health Service then - extend Medicare and/or VA to cover the whole population. If that's what you want, you can have it... but you can't have it (as Tony P notes) if you want to pay money towards maintaining the insurance industry's profits.

[wonkie]

Insurers are not required to deliver anything except the bill for their premiums. The proposed legislation would limit some of their excuses for failing to deliver health care.

Insurance companies are capitalistic enterprises driven by the profit motive. Their goal is to get the most return for the least investment, something for nothing being the ideal. To them the perfect customer is one who pays and pays and pays for the premiums but never applies for benefits.

I spent a year studying to be a med assistant Before deciding that it was not for me) which included taking a couple classes on medical billing. ASk anyone involved in medical billing (except the insurers, who lie) and they will tell you the same thing: insurance companies have a policy of obstructing pay outs in all kinds of imaginative ways. They delay payments, they "lose" records, they find imaginary faults in the paperwork, they set up arbitrary and unnecessary paperwork roadblocks in the hope that the people pursuing payment will get tired or confused and give up...and that's just how they deal with the staff of the doctor's ofice. With patients the goal is to find some way to collect premiums but deny bnefits, the previous condition scam being one of the most wellknown dodges.

Delivering health care is the last thing insurannce companies want to do.

Yeah, broad brush. There are some responsible outfits: Group Health, a not for profit coop is pretty good. But they're a coop!

[Slartibartfast]

Insurers are not required to deliver anything except the bill for their premiums.

I don't think that's quite true, wonkie. Not that there aren't problems with (pretty much all kinds of) insurance companies, but let's not pretend there's no regulation at all, even if it's not always completely effective.

[I Hate Chavs]

I agree with Chmood. It's good to see him comment here again.

[jonnybutter]

I want the insurance companies, who employ a lot of people I like having jobs, to do a better job and get paid fairly.

But tobacco farming is my life!

Cleaning the oil off of birds after oil spills is how I feed my family! What about the cleaning-oil-off-of-birds industry? What about THE CHILDREN?!

[chmood]

"It is called being an entrepeneur. The heart of our real economic growth for decades. So do we want Walmart or these kind of companies? It is the worst kind of class divisiveness."

Marty, I suggest there's a real disconnect between the two parts of this comment. Entrepreneurship did indeed flourish in this country for many years, and was in fact the heart of our prosperity for decades, as you say. However, we have displaced the entrepreneur, *and* the small business owner with the capitalist model (no, Marty, they are NOT the same), at the cost of both entrepreneurship and small-business growth (to say nothing of small-business survival).

While this has certainly brought many PRICES down, the COST has been to individual economic liberty and opportunity - which have been crippled, stunted - if not mortally wounded. Our nation would be a happier and more prosperous land if we could finally realize that unfettered capital is corrosive of individual rights and public politics, and destructive to free enterprise and free markets.

You argue as if you were one of Adam Smith's wealthy patron, yet I suspect you, too, are just another speck of labor to the capital-driven behemoths that have bought the government and carved up our land and our society to suit themselves. To hear "ordinary Joes" like you fight for their owners, their lords and masters, for their "right" to marginalize and enslave us - on the grounds that "it's the American way"...it fill me with dread and dismay.

[Anani Sikerim]

To hear "ordinary Joes" like you fight for their owners, their lords and masters, for their "right" to marginalize and enslave us - on the grounds that "it's the American way"...it fill me with dread and dismay.

It's good to see someone take a stand against corporate fascism. I wouldn't take a shot at Adam Smith, though. Smith himself warned of the dangers of "monied incorporations." Marty is voicing the ideology of pre-capitalist, pre-corporate market economics, the economics of the craftsman and small shopkeeper. But Wal-Mart put them out of business a long time ago. His analysis has no relevance to late capitalism.

[Marty]

" but you can't have it (as Tony P notes) if you want to pay money towards maintaining the insurance industry's profits."

Someone gets the money to do the insurance. The government gets in taxes or the insurers get it in profits. Tony P. and you just assume, with no basis for it, that if the government took over the amount I pay in taxes would be less than the amount I pay for insurance. Someone provides that service either way. A pool of money has to be created to then redistribute.

[Marty]

" But Wal-Mart put them out of business a long time ago. His analysis has no relevance to late capitalism."

I am not sure i agree with this. The technology industry is rife with examples of small business success, local businesses do start and survive in spite of the constant roadblocks from both monied corporations and the government. The challenge, of course, is to seperate those two things because together they do work to create the society that chmood describes.

[cleek]

The government gets in taxes or the insurers get it in profits.

?

if the govt is providing the insurance, it makes no profit; it just pays claims, and maybe invests any leftover. compare that to an insurance company which pays the same (for the sake of argument) amount to the HC providers that the govt would, but also takes its own cut.

for-profit premiums include the profits.
non-profit premiums don't.

[Jesurgislac]

< Tony P. and you just assume, with no basis for it, that if the government took over the amount I pay in taxes would be less than the amount I pay for insurance.

Given that's how it works for Medicare and for VA - they both operate more cost-effectively than the private health insurance industry - why do you claim there's "no basis" for assuming that the US, like all the other developed countries in the world, would find healthcare became cheaper if the whole country were insured by a single payer scheme?

The US has a worse healthcare system than any other developed country (37th in the world, remember) and pays more for it than any other country. To assume that this is inevitable - that American exceptionalism means putting up with a rotten healthcare system and paying through the nose for it because the US isn't capable of doing at least as well as other countries - is an odd kind of anti-patriotism that we see a lot from conservatives.

[Anani Sikerim]

The technology industry is rife with examples of small business success, local businesses do start and survive in spite of the constant roadblocks from both monied corporations and the government.

Yeah, because Microsoft and Google are cottage industries. Tech is a capital-intensive field, which means it's heavily dependent on venture capital. Just because you can cite a few feel good stories about individuals making it rich doesn't justify the overall structure of capitalist oppression. That's like saying we can disregard income inequality because poor people have a chance at winning the lottery.

[Anani sikerim]

that American exceptionalism means putting up with a rotten healthcare system and paying through the nose for it because the US isn't capable of doing at least as well as other countries - is an odd kind of anti-patriotism that we see a lot from conservatives.

American exceptionalism means poor black and brown kids don't have the right to health care, but do have the right to get their legs blown off in neocolonialist wars of aggression. At least then they kid government health care, albeit at Walter Reed.

[chmood]

Anani: while I certainly think that it's long past time for a deconstruction of Wealth of Nations, what I was taking aim at was specifically the "commoditization of Labour," which is a direct outgrowth (and perhaps misuse) of Smith's work - which was written for the wealthy and powerful British aristocrats and industrialists of his day. "Workers" - that is, the formerly independent and self-sustaining skilled craftsmen and artisans whose independence was destroyed by industry via commoditization - were, and are still, cogs in the machine: a cost of business to be controlled, driven down at every opportunity in order to maximize profits.

If you have a job, you are "labor": indispensable, perhaps, but replaceable and interchangeable - a cost factor as opposed to a human being. Every American who envisions wealth & success for themselves will fight against the entrenched attitude toward Labor held by Capital...and will probably lose.

This may not be what Smith himself envisioned, but it is nonetheless intrinsic to his work, although the basic attitudes themselves are as old as feudalism. A detailed contrast of wage-slavery vs chattel-slavery (if I ever get around to writing such) would clarify this further.