The United States is about to start subsidizing the retiree health insurance plans of big corporations. Like the current disastrous Medicare drug benefit, this amounts to an ill-considered injection of inefficient (because profit-driven) private insurance companies between the health care consumer and the appropriate ultimate payor, the federal government. Because of the proven efficiency of the government — as demonstrated by Medicare and the Veteran’s Health Administration — in delivering health care at the least possible expense, single payer is the way to go. Allowing insurance companies to interfere and create a dense private bureaucracy to cream off unnecessary profits while operating under the strongest possible incentive (i.e., the profit motive) to deliver the least amount of health care possible is a disaster-in-waiting for our already hobbled health care system.

Naturally, though, this is precisely the tack taken by the Weakener-in-Chief, since allowing health insurance companies to rip off patients and taxpayers accomplishes W’s twin goals of weakening the nation and helping big business.