Common Cents

WHO Cares Now

Ralph Murphy

(4/1) The Trump administration announced a major policy shift in late May by indicating it would be withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) , a Geneva, Switzerland United Nations function dedicated to healthcare issues. Blaming it for presumed complicity in the COVID-19 flu cover up the move will terminate a six decade affiliation that has symbolized a corner stone of new left political rallying resulting in price collusion, overcharges, income guarantees, poor service and now race riots amid management and political realignments.

Healthcare as it evolved in the post World War Two era has been subject to varied commercial and international accords generally claiming an altruistic interest in meeting that basic need. A Universal Heath Care commitment of 194 UN members sought to guarantee access and services to its members by coordinating policy and programs in a mixture of public and private spending programs to meet those needs. As with most impersonal or detached accords the varied social political and economic differences between member states made symmetry near impossible, though basic understandings did persist. Amon them were income guarantees to funding and linked social programs. Politics were also strongly affected when the issue often replaced labor or social justice platforms more typical of the older liberal formations.

The problem with that world attempt was again the depth of resolve to administer or provide basic service for hospital stays or pharmaceuticals at a reasonable price but assured access. Some nations had price or wage controls or subsidy programs not just linked to the healthcare but vast variance in other markets, both of which affected the pricing policies. They’d also make cross border bargaining unpredictable and often costly with manipulation rife and project money lost or diverted to other programs. What was consistent to most of the developed world were paycheck withdrawals under varied program guises that established a predictable level of earnings but could have little to do with actual market value or cost justified by input effort to that field.

Professional organizations would lobby for the supply element or the hospitals and doctors and demand would bargain as insurance groups ostensibly reflecting patient interests. The common denominator was a near guaranteed access to either Medicare or Medicaid state or tax fund resources or statutory obligations to insurance payouts or out of pocket payment for the uninsured. American investment in a non socialized earnings projection was one of the highest in the world with most reports claiming at least 17-18% of GDP directed to that group. Europe varies between 9 -11% of each nations earnings. The far east as Thailand can be as low as 4%, it depends on the service type, provider interns and here bargaining and scrutiny to process.

The Americans would save over $400 million in direct fees by the WHO withdrawal, but it is also an obvious attempt to divert accountability for the quarantines, business and school closures and stay at home orders that have strongly contributed to recent urban violence. Other factors are involved as subsidy lapses or simple tax transfers or even institutional bank theft that has been reversed by legal and civil replacement of most of the "old guard" linked to collusive pricing and politics. The healthcare program was used as pretense for the broad social restrictions so should be addressed as a key issue, but the riots reflect simple realignments to non subsidized interests and appear almost internecine as conventional producers haven’t noticeably been structurally impacted.

There are other issues with the health field that also need exploring and seem best symbolized by the Bethesda based National Institute of Health, a department of the Public Health Service housed in the Health and Human Services division of the White House. It’s one of 11 HHS programs but unlike the others as CDC or FDA requires variable project funding in the form of grants that supplement its research operations or are diverted to the private or educational sectors both at home and abroad with very little process scrutiny, accountability to grants or justification for billing. Congressional funding routinely approached $40 billion for the varied endeavors mostly very esoteric student projects that again remained " in house". To review patents in major operations none were listed as stemming from the government research labs but rather their contract agents in the private sector as DuPont or others that benefited from field contractor grants when an emergency cure had to be found.

That whole guaranteed grant system has been recently reviewed and legislation that provides income withdrawals from employee taxes should reflect it shortly. The numbers were simply gross to collusive overcharge. The schemes again linked to the insurers, hospitals and government lobbyists with effectively mandatory overcharges to the medication and services the bargaining result. If the prices were allowed to simply "float" or reflect market value I think the field would moderate to well below double digits in total output redirects.

Ideally a credit type understanding based on income or access to it could replace hypothetical insurance charges that can be enormously costly and often simply not used. Statutory obligation should reflect actual billing needs and not that very strong lobby’s interest. Costs would surely plummet, and with competitive understandings service likely improve as well.

That does bring renewed attention to the social political impact of the coronavirus folly that triggered the collective house arrest of much of the world as theft programs and linked players go through "withdrawal". Obviously no flu is as damaging as linked restrictions, but in a world all too prone to proxy fights or deferred responsibility policy makers have been able to use it for that pretense.

The bottom line to the direct health care issue is a basic need has been manipulated both in the commercial and political spheres and terminating that WHO and tied OECD commitment will help sever binding obligations that had little to do with actual service here or in diverted project money or legal restrictions. Their budget was listed at over $4 billion annually in direct costs, mostly member contributions, but again it had limited if any commercial traction beyond a political statement of intent as accountability so low.

In America the services are one of the highest costs in the world but the access is limited oddly with professed socialized ones abroad actually far more accessible. I’m not justifying there’s but rather bemoaning the collusion here that does lead to that overcharge, taxes or out of pocket expenses that would be more avoidable in a market setting but can’t be attained due to the professional collective bargaining. We’re "boxed out" without more legal affordance in that regard.

Democratic pitch teams thrive on manipulating that inherent basic need as exponentially more important than its actual market value. Healthcare is a basic function that probably is going to be required at some point in your life, as is security to the Republican programs, but should be placed in proper billing perspective and that best served by the private sector. Almost all the western economies are a mixture between insurance and government social outlays. Ideally credit and transfer based on social service withdrawals not pay checks on a per need basis, plus insurance as optional could replace it. The costs are too high, alliances political and services suspect. That kind of fund redirect can also lead to real parasitic players or programs to include social avant-garde as viable in undisclosed redirects in no way otherwise reflecting their value beyond that team. Democrats are mostly irregular in that respect, I doubt many would withstand an objective audit or want their overruns revealed.

Recent violence and urban unrest seems variable sourced but includes lack of closer billing scrutiny to programs that had been trusted to "powers that be" as self policing in broad spending permission. That privilege was abused, costs sent too high, enforcement extralegal, and simple accounting accountability likely all that’s needed without direct or tolerated governing intervention. Withdrawal from WHO and scrutiny to pitch teams versus their cause and social effect was long overdue. It won’t save them but will help us.