Thomas Frank: Health Care and the 'Predator State'

[marmar]

via commondreams:



Published on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 by the Wall Street Journal

Health Care and the 'Predator State'
It is corporate power, not the government, that we need to worry about.

by Thomas Frank


In June 2008, I used this space to call on then-Sen. Barack Obama to add economist James K. Galbraith's book, "The Predator State," to his reading list. As an account of the capture of government by private interests, I thought it would make a far more useful guide to contemporary political economy than the market-glorifying texts that were still in fashion in those days.

I don't know if Mr. Obama ever took my advice.

But Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley apparently did. During a debate last week over two Democratic proposals for a health-care bill featuring a "public option"—a government-run alternative to private health insurance—the senator announced he opposed the idea because, as he put it, "Government is not a fair competitor. . . . It's a predator."

The word "predator" seems to have become something of a Republican talking point. Mr. Grassley's colleague from South Dakota, John Thune, went on the record in July to warn that, when government goes into business, it "becomes not a competitor but a predator."

Have these two august men of the right secretly become fans of Mr. Galbraith, one of our leading liberal economists? ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/07-0

[HowHasItComeToThis]

1. THEY ARE ALL PREDATORS

DOG EAT DOG
DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST
SINK OR SWIM

[Wounded Bear]

2. It seems you can always tell what they are doing, and supporting...

by what they publicly "oppose." Projection is no longer just a private defense mechanism by individuals. It's public policy, largely from Republicans and RWers in general.

When you accuse your opponents of what you, yourself are doing, it deflects attention from reality.