[underlipton]

The political cowardice of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats to not just deep-six the private health insurance industry as we knew it when they had the chance, Republican (and Blue Dog) whining be damned, cannot be overstated. It's been 15 years. Think how different our country could be today, how much better off people could have been, if we'd established an American NHS with even half of the money we spend.

It's a little crazy how quick we are to fire individuals who have a negative effect on a given organization, while being so loathe to "fire" the organizations who have a negative effect on our society.

[Projectiboga]

Yep campaign finance laws really feed this mess. Both parties love to blame the Senate Filibuster, but no one want's to eliminate it. This specific problem would end rapidly if the insurance companies were on the hook for having to honor their 'in network' lists, they should be liable for any inaccuracies on that list, and any fighting about money should be between the providers and the insurance companies, both have money to litigate. Patients do not have the time or money to fight effectively.

[underlipton]

One thing: both parties have done their part in changing cloture votes for nominees to simple majorities (though, of course, with the distinction that Democrats were frustrated with years of filibuster abuse, whereas Republicans used it simply to get their SCOTUS nomination through).

But whether its the filibuster or private entities caught in massive controversies (medical insurers wrt TFA, banks wrt the GFC, Big Pharma wrt the opioid crisis), the hemming and hawing over in government incremental change and any sort of real accountability, in the face of clear abuse and exploitation, is infuriating.

I'll add another wrinkle: all of this was predictable, because these issues that have become of concern for the entire country have analogues that weren't dealt with correctly when they were mostly affecting marginalized groups (LGBT folk accessing care, people of color accessing mortgages and dealing with the crack epidemic). Did we inadvertently build ourselves a framework for failure with those? I tend to think so. They're not new diseases, we just let old ones spread.