Americans Eat Their Own
What can we learn from observing what is happening in the United States? That Americans eat their own, financially speaking. The ruthless application of capitalism practiced in the US feeds on the vulnerable for profit. It celebrates the gorging of the few at the expense of the many. I mean, do you really think that individuals should have hundreds of billions of dollars whilst millions of Americans struggle to survive? The dishonesty prevalent in American business and the Trump administration speaks volumes about what the rich and powerful care about. Themselves and increasing their own wealth.
US Corporatised Health System Cannibalising Consumers
Let me share a story with you happening in the health sector in the US. A mother was recommended a series of allergy tests for her daughter in Texas. She, like many Americans, had private health insurance cover and so she got a quote for these tests from her provider. It came back that she would have to pay $5, 000 out of pocket and that the allergy testing via the facility recommended by her insurer was a whopping $24, 000. The mother was shocked at the expense and rang around other clinics for quotes. These came in at between $1, 600 and $1, 900 on average for the total payment charged. What emerged was that private hospitals have been buying up clinics and charging rates in accord with their much higher costs. Remember that these are allergy tests and not brain surgery. This is accountants shifting things around on balance sheets to apply inputs associated with running a modern high tech hospital to the services provided by an out patient clinic. This is the kind of massively inflated financial process via sleight of hand accounting going on in the corporatised American health system. Basically, it stinks.
American Private Equity Feeds On Maximising Profitability At The Expense Of Care
One would think that the corporatisation via privatisation of medical clinics and hospitals would make the health system more cost efficient and a better deal for patients. You know, the neoliberal mantra about how inefficient governments are in comparison to the private sector. This has not been the case in America, as you can see by the example given above. The fact that 78% of all American doctors are now employed by a corporation is not something to celebrate. These ‘for profit’ corporate entities are ruthlessly defining care in the US. Private equity investment has put profits way ahead of providing patient care at reasonable rates for the maximum amount of Americans.
“Patients are more likely to fall, get new infections, or experience other forms of harm during their stay in a hospital after it is acquired by a private equity firm, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School.
The research, published Dec. 26 in JAMA, is among a handful of recent nationwide analyses of how private equity takeovers affect the quality of patient care in hospitals. The increases are seen in conditions or outcomes deemed preventable and are key measures of hospital safety and quality.”
Are reports like the one above why the Trump regime are coming after Harvard University?
“After private-equity firms acquire hospitals, the facilities’ assets and resources diminish significantly, leaving the facilities less equipped to care for patients, according to a new study by physician researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, Harvard Medical School and the City University of New York’s Hunter College.
Published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the research highlights a pattern of asset stripping at health care facilities purchased by private-equity firms, its researchers said, and is the first study to analyze the activity nationwide.”
Donald Trump is coming after the media, which reports such important stuff as this. This is what fascist dictators do. They seek to stifle investigative journalism, so that the only narrative is their own. In a true democracy, real freedom of speech allows for a diversity of voices in the public sphere. An independent media is probably the most important democratic institution, closely followed by an independent higher education sector.
“There is no universal healthcare. The U.S. government does not provide health benefits to citizens or visitors. Any time you get medical care, someone has to pay for it. Healthcare is very expensive. According to a U.S. government website, if you break your leg, you could end up with a bill for $7,500. If you need to stay in the hospital for three days, it would probably cost about $30,000.”
Why Do Many Americans Back Ruthless Capitalism?
Few other places in the world support a system that fails to provide any universal healthcare to their citizens. The dog eat dog nature of American capitalism seem to celebrate a zero sum game, where some winners thrive at the expense of many more losers. Neoliberal champions like Ronald Reagan perpetuated the myth of exceptional American individualism. This BS was the old ‘pulling oneself up by one’s boot straps’, which meant an unassisted climb to the top. The self-made man fiction, which Donald Trump has spun over the years, despite being the son of a very wealthy property developer. In addition, there is a more recent cultural attachment to the ‘bad ass dude’ macho aspiration. This celebrates those men who smash down stuff extra violently to achieve whatever they want. Taking things to the extreme and risking shit characterises this modern American hero worship. Very violent movies and the prevalence of super hero characters have fed this over recent times. Therefore, even morally deficient billionaires have been adored, especially if they have done bad ass stuff along the way.
“If you watch Fox News and listen to those in the right wing media echo chamber you are immediately struck by the constant lying. Why is the Trump regime so dishonest? Why do they feel it necessary to be so factually fraudulent? Pete Hegseth was just caught out doing the dumb and wrong thing and his response was to aggressively lie about it. Indeed, the Trump MO is all about never admitting you are in the wrong and telling great big lies instead. How this is going to make America great again has me beat.”
Young Men Voted For Trump
The pundits tell us that Donald Trump was electorally supported by young American men in his presidential victory in 2024. It should not come as any surprise that young guys are not always the smartest demographic going around. In fairness to them, they had witnessed an octogenarian running their country for several years, only to be replaced by a woman. Joe Biden did a sterling job, in my view, but you could never have described him as virile in the usual sense of the word. It is no revelation to say that young folk like to see representations of themselves doing things that they aspire to. Indeed, witnessing a leader having trouble forming sentences cogently would have been distressing for many of them. I think, Kamala Harris was unlucky that she didn’t have enough time to settle into the role prior to going to the polls. I would remind everyone that America has never elected a female president and that Donald Trump has won the presidency twice by defeating a woman. That says a lot about the United States and its conservative nature, despite it being the 21C.
The View Of White Men In America
The male dominated character of many parts of the US, especially in red states that support Trump, is predisposed to that zero sum game way of seeing the world. Christianity is a patriarchal philosophy. Christian Nationalism is a particularly virulent expression of this and promotes a white men rule the roost in America ethos. Christ is my saviour and Trump is my president – is the bumper sticker. This US culture sees things as a competitive arena where there are winners and losers. On top of this, Republican Party propaganda sells them the idea that the losers deserve their misfortune. Thus, things like socialised medicine are anathema to the red blooded American male way of understanding things. If you cannot afford to pay your own way, you deserve the poverty that comes to you. Of course, this celebration of heroic individualism avoids looking at the economic manipulations favouring the wealthy and well connected. It is like a magic trick, so don’t look over here! Keep your focus on the story we are putting forward about cowboys and men who walk tall unaided. Meanwhile, the economic game has been rigged to syphon off the revenue and profits to a select few.
Low Taxes For The Super Wealthy
Trump keeps lowering corporate taxes and taxes on the super wealthy. To pay for them they will cut government services to the middle class and working poor. DOGE is a con, a scam, a smokescreen to slash the civil service and remove oversight from the macro corruption about to flourish big time. Americans eat their own and it is going to be a smorgasbord of suffering for ordinary folk served up by the Trump regime. If he can gag the media, those liberal media platforms that don’t sing from the approved song sheet, then, lots of Americans won’t hear about the suffering. Trump is nobbling big law firms to prevent them from representing his victims and opposition. He is going after the universities to stop dissent from fomenting on campus and in print. Trump is disappearing foreign students and professors to El Salvador and the new giant prison constructed there. The White House announcement tells the public that all these folk were gang members and bad people. No trials, no presumption of innocence, just blanket statements with no proof provided. That is the Trump way. This is the behaviour of a fascist dictator.
The rule of law in America has been discarded and corrupted. Once any individual becomes stateless then the worst crimes against humanity are likely to be committed. This is what the Nazis did in Poland and Ukraine to the Jews and other enemies of the German state – it was how they managed to murder millions of human beings. Trump is not a joke; he and his regime are very evil agents of destruction. Trump’s success will be predicated on just how stupid and indifferent the American people will be.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
©HouseTherapy
