And here we go again, with the health care debate. It would be convenient to require private health care insurers to make sure everyone in the US was covered because “government is so bad, bloated and can’t do anything right”. People are being convinced it’s better to spend 3x’s more in the form of premiums than to spend less through taxes of any kind. And of course, this universal requirement comes at a time when private health care insurers have lost a huge market share because people can’t afford or don’t find good value in the product offered.

The Orwellen phrase is “preserving free market choices”. Huh? Free market doesn’t have anything to do with a ‘guaranteeing there is a market’ any more than the 2003 tax credit of $30k to buy SUV’s and Hummers guaranteed GM would make smaller cars or TARP would be used to ease credit.

Yet just as all these things demonstrate that industry driven policies do not work and are not “capitalism”, it’s the healthcare debate that painfully displays just how little say voters have in Congress. There has been no voice of the public invited.

In 93, Wm Kristol published a memo to Republican’s admitting 79% wanted a “public run” healthcare system like Medicare. At the time, Kristol advised not to get in debates about the merit of such a system because that would only lead to concessions and compromise when the whole idea needed to be erased. Catch-all phrases were to be used instead; rationing, socialized, free-market, class-war, …

There was no remorse about not representing voters. The reason used for needing to quell any suggestion of healthcare reform was the allegiance to Republican ideology and not allow Democrats to be seen as “protectors”.

Little has changed since then except the development of a small group of Democrats known as “Blue Dogs” that have taken the Republican ideology in sheep’s clothing. I know I was mislead by them. They also don’t believe voters have the ability to self-govern.

You state that this is not political warfare, yet these powerhouses have eliminated any say-so by voters in major policy issues. This is reflected in media that finds the latest celebrity news (“good news”) more important than asking questions and print press releases verbatim. Then complain that they are loosing viewers and readers. At no time do they look for clues with the way they are doing business. At no time do they think that laying off 75% of investigative reporting staff might have been the wrong answer.

The markets are not self-regulating. The fact that people are not buying product anymore does not lead to introspection on the part of mega-corporations anymore. What it leads to are more lucrative lobbying measures and contracts such as Walmart getting FEMA’s only contract.

Lobbying for regulated market share or capital using Congress is far more productive than any advertising or PR campaign. Visa has been willing to block some legal retail purchases, effectively killing companies that “gave the customer what they wanted”

Just as software start-ups can be killed in deep pocket nonsense lawsuits and devices are intentionally disabled from fully functioning – very anti-capitalistic in theory.

Consumers voting with purchasing power can’t keep up with how fast corporations are finding ways to eliminating consumers from having choices – including access to information and voting. Unless there is a much larger action from the grass roots level, we might as well kiss Bill Kristol’s ass.