The health care mandate produces the biggest change in politics and government since monarchs were replaced by elected governments.
I don't think the Democrats and Republicans in Congress understood what they were doing when they went along with the desire of the health insurance corporations and others to pass the mandate. The health insurance corporations and others of course wanted more power to control the markets.
The transfer of sovereignty to the corporations is accomplished by requiring citizens to purchase health insurance from the corporations - and at the same time, GIVING THE CORPORATIONS THE POWER TO DECIDE WHAT CITIZENS MUST PAY. When people are forced to pay whatever X decides, that gives X government powers.
Furthermore, this is taxation without representation because the citizens don't elect the corporate boards of directors which decide what people must pay.
Pretending that there is serious competition is simply not true. For some decades now, corporations have decided basic prices together in many sectors of the economy.
What this does instead is to form a kind of legislature to govern the citizens, made up of a limited number of health insurance corporations. This is similar to oligarchy, although the governing units are corporations rather than wealthy families.
This is only health care now, but in history, precedents like this tend to be expanded over time. The health insurance corporations in the future could easily merge with the new corporations which run an increasing number of schools, the new corporations which run prisons, the new corporations which provide military contractors, etc.
I don't know why people haven't noticed this transfer of sovereignty. Perhaps however the reason is that we have never had a kind of corporate oligarchy before, so there is no picture of it in people's minds for them to think about.
Jim
I don't think the Democrats and Republicans in Congress understood what they were doing when they went along with the desire of the health insurance corporations and others to pass the mandate. The health insurance corporations and others of course wanted more power to control the markets.
The transfer of sovereignty to the corporations is accomplished by requiring citizens to purchase health insurance from the corporations - and at the same time, GIVING THE CORPORATIONS THE POWER TO DECIDE WHAT CITIZENS MUST PAY. When people are forced to pay whatever X decides, that gives X government powers.
Furthermore, this is taxation without representation because the citizens don't elect the corporate boards of directors which decide what people must pay.
Pretending that there is serious competition is simply not true. For some decades now, corporations have decided basic prices together in many sectors of the economy.
What this does instead is to form a kind of legislature to govern the citizens, made up of a limited number of health insurance corporations. This is similar to oligarchy, although the governing units are corporations rather than wealthy families.
This is only health care now, but in history, precedents like this tend to be expanded over time. The health insurance corporations in the future could easily merge with the new corporations which run an increasing number of schools, the new corporations which run prisons, the new corporations which provide military contractors, etc.
I don't know why people haven't noticed this transfer of sovereignty. Perhaps however the reason is that we have never had a kind of corporate oligarchy before, so there is no picture of it in people's minds for them to think about.
Jim
