(Sources: www.nchc.org, www.iom.edu, www.cato.org)

You get the idea. "We" spend a lot of money on health care as a nation, and get very little to show for it. And that is not surprising, since so much of the system is privatized and profit-seeking. A corporation is a machine for making money, that's what it does. Whether it's a pharmaceutical company making boner-pills or an insurance company writing policies, the purpose of a business enterprise is to maximize profits for its shareholders -- that's it. We should not expect corporations, even if they are in the health care industry, to actually "care" about people's health or quality of life. That is not a company's concern. They will do whatever it takes to make money, period. If that means dropping as many people from coverage as possible for pre-existing conditions or clerical errors, then so be it. If that means hiring thousands of lobbyists to grease the palms of every federal politician, to keep uncomfortable legislation off the table, then that's what will happen. We should not expect health care businesses to operate differently from any other business. Indeed, they cannot, or they would not survive.

So the deeper issue here is our view of markets: what do they produce, can they produce that same thing everywhere, and where should we NOT use the market? Free markets are definitely good for certain things. They are the greatest things ever devised for allocating certain kinds of goods, especially consumer commodities. But is everything a consumer commodity? Obviously not. We would not place our Constitutional rights, for example, into an open marketplace, where more or less freedom could be bought for a price. We would not assign our courtrooms and judges based on ability to pay. 

In essence, the marketplace can only produce efficiency and overall social good in limited settings. Not every human function and concern can be improved by subjecting it to the profit motive. We obviously want businesses to make money, compete, and develop better products. But not everything is a business, not everything is a consumer product, and desire for profits is not the only motivation that should drive a community's priorities. This is what a representative government is all about: projecting the human desires of citizens onto the sociopolitical landscape, so that people's various motivations and priorities are given weight and voice. Unfortunately, the problem is that the entire federal government has been captured by corporate interests, so that only the business perspective is heard, and the profit-motive becomes the only driver. 

This is more than obvious in the current health care imbroglio. Obama a socialist? Obama bankrupting the country with outlandish spending? Well, yes, the country is financial toast, but not because of socialism. Socialist tendencies might actually create something of use to the people. No, what the US has is a flat-out plutocracy. We spend a trillion bucks a year on the military, and most of that is funneled through private defense firms. This health care reform is just more of the same: increased government spending filtered through the corporate conduits of insurance, drug, and hospital corporations. 

Remember that a single-payer plan, the only option that would drastically cut overhead and waste, by unifying payment processes and vastly increasing price negotiation abilities, is completely off the table. Remember that Billy Tauzin, former 25-year Congressman and current pharmaceutical lobbyist-in-chief, had a closed door meeting with the White House, fixing the drug industry's "contribution" to cutting costs at $60 billion, over ten years (a drop in the proverbial bucket). 

So, no, we probably cannot afford the kind of health care reform being floated now, but no more or less than we can afford the ridiculously bloated military budget, which is a much bigger river of cash. The biggest fraud idea floating around out there is that the private and public spheres are somehow separate, that business is a different entity than government. In some countries, that might be true. But in the US, corporate and government cultures are fused, and that includes Big Media, itself a corporate entity. Politicians don't just serve business interests: they are the business interests. It's the same personnel, shuffling around from corporate boards to K Street to Congress and back again. The idea that there are "special interests" that are actually a separate entity from the people in Congress that they are lobbying is a joke. IT'S THE SAME GUYS!!  

So we'll continue arguing on and on about health care, and some deal may or may not get done -- whatever. But keep in mind that whatever we do get, it will certainly not be anything like what other developed countries have. It will not be single-payer, it will not be truly universal, and it certainly will not inhibit the profit trends of the involved industries. What it will do is ensure a new revenue stream for corporations, just like the current defense-industry gravy train. Health care as a human right, outside the wonderful discipline of the marketplace? Perish the thought, along with a lot of actual people.