In order to get my undergrad degree the university required me to take some general BA coursework to fill some generic requirement or other, prove I was functionally literate, you know the drill. So one semester I signed up for a ‘Women of Science-Fiction’ class from the English lit department.

It was about what you’d expect. Well, worse, since it was a women of sci-fi class that barely touched on Ursula K. LeGuin or any decent authors, taught by an aging hippy professor who picked some of the worst books I’ve ever had to read. (Including this little pro-eugenics piece of trash)

When we came to The Handmaid’s Tale, I was exasperated. The book opens with a brief description of the United States succumbing more or less overnight to theocratic military despotism. In our classroom discussion, I tried to explain what I thought was the political impossibility of a the world’s most powerful democracy made up of slightly under 50% women quickly and willingly becoming such a place. The majority of women, I said, would have had to support such a change, not just the majority of men. And that, surely, would never happen. Why would women, let alone women in positions of power, willingly throw themselves under the bus to become second-class citizens?

I suppose we’ll find out if I owe Margaret Atwood an apology in a couple of days.

1) http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/harvard-medical-study-links-lack-of-insurance-to-45000-us-deaths-a-year/
2) http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/
3) http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082740
4) http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/26/claire-mccaskill/who-is-allowed-health-insurance-exchange/
5) http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/09/if-private-health-insurance-companies-are-evil-why-are-you-forcing-me-to-be-a-customer/

Well, we got ours today, so to speak. Our health insurance plan is coming up for renewal and we got our rate increase notification.

It’s only a 15% hike. Only 15%. Only about five times consumer inflation.

Sigh.

A lot of people have gotten it a lot worse, obviously, as the private health insurers that we may shortly be forced to patronize gouge the end consumer to line their pockets.

Still, as we all know by now, under the Obama-Senate health plan, costs aren’t going down. No matter how much free market economagic Ezra Klein believes in, or how many chickens Jonathon Gruber sacrifices to the great Gods of Capitalism, hard data tells us the truth: they’re only going up.

The Exchange will not bring down costs, nor your premiums, at least not for long. They will continue to go up. Period.

Oh, and that plan that Obama rolled out for an Insurance Rate Overseer? The Devil’s definitely in the details on that one:

The legislation would call on the secretary of health and human services to work with state regulators to develop an annual review of rate increases, and if increases are deemed “unjustified” the secretary or the state could block the increase, order the insurer to change it, or even issue a rebate to beneficiaries.

The new rate board would be composed of seven members, including consumer representatives, an insurance industry representative, a physician and other experts like health economists and actuaries, the White House said. The board’s annual report would offer guidance to the public and states on whether rate increases should be approved.

That’s right. An unelected board composed of people like Jonathon Gruber, insurance execs and actuaries, along with some token ‘consumer representatives’, will be charged with overseeing future rate increases.

Their carefully considered advice can then be summarily ignored by the Secretary, but hey. I’m sure everything will just work out. Unelected and unaccountable boards always do such a good job; I’m just overflowing with confidence.

It’s not like our government is in the business of cutting secret backroom deals with powerful players in the health industry. Surely they will be good partners, err, stewards, of the insurance industry.