– As the health care bill gets sliced and diced into a much more corporate-friendly and ineffective skeleton of its previous self in the Senate, I’m struck by how the arguments for still passing it sound like the arguments that were made (by myself and others) to pass the local roads and transit measure in 2007. Back then, I was fairly convinced that we only had a small window of opportunity on getting real transit and that window might close. It turns out that it got done – and got done in a much better way – a year later.
Although, for fear of being wrong twice, I’m still leaning towards the folks who are arguing that this is our last chance on health care for a while. The only thing that leads me to disagree with Drum’s linked post is that the condition of our health care system now is so much worse than in any of those previous years. It’s possible that the demand for reform from the public will not subside like it did in previous years.
And if anyone was on the fence about the willingness of Obama to side with the American public over the interests of the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, I think Jame Hamsher has definitively put that question to rest right here. At the beginning of Obama’s term, I considered his attempts to keep ties with Joe Lieberman his biggest mistake. But even though it’s turning out exactly as I expected – with Joe Lieberman being a hypocritical jackass and trying to derail real reforms – it doesn’t seem to be bothering Obama too much. It just adds more ammunition to those, like Matt Taibbi, who have come to believe that Obama has little interest in challenging the corporate corruption that continues to dominate our political system.
Passing a health care bill, even a half-assed one, might have one potential benefit that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere. Once it passes (if it passes), there will be a stronger interest among both Obama and the Democrats in Congress not to have it become a major boondoggle. There will be a clearer sense of ownership of the health care problem, and perhaps that might lead to a more rational discussion within the caucus of how to fix it, rather than simply worrying about the influence and power of the lobbies who are wielding a large amount of influence to simply kill the effort entirely. Or maybe we’re all just fucked, I’m not sure.
– The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, claims that money laundered by drug gangs saved some the world’s major banks from collapsing during the recent financial crisis. Worldwide, criminal gangs from Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia, and elsewhere make about $352 billion from the global market for illicit drugs.
– Californians will be voting on whether to legalize marijuana this November. Polls show that support for legalizing marijuana there is over 50%. The initiative that they’ll be voting on also addresses the personal growing question, something that the recently drafted bill here (HB 2401) in Washington’s State House doesn’t. The initiative there will allow for a 25 square foot growing area for personal use. HB 2401 should probably adopt something similar to that.
– I’ve been reading up on the case of Roe v TeleTech, a job discrimination case from Kitsap County where a company (TeleTech) terminated a medical marijuana patient because she failed a drug screening. The woman had actually started the job and worked for a week with no problems before the decision was made to terminate her for violating the company’s drug-free workplace policy. She was authorized by a doctor to use marijuana for her migraines and she did not use the drug at work. Her medical use didn’t affect her ability to work in any way, but the court ruled in favor of TeleTech. Since this occurred, a 2007 revision of the law made it clearer that companies like TeleTech could only terminate a person if they were in a safety-sensitive position or if they wanted to use their medicine within the workplace. The fired woman is petitioning for the State Supreme Court to review the case.
– As part of their attempt to build a downtown entertainment district around the new light rail station, Sea-Tac is using eminent domain to condemn a private surface lot (paying the owners $2 million less than what they recently paid to acquire it) and building a public parking garage in its place. The owners of the lot, James and Doris Cassan, have an uphill battle in fighting the action. The Supreme Court ruled a few years back in Kelo v. City of New London that it was legal for cities to take property like this for large-scale development projects. It also doesn’t help the Cassans that people would really love to have more public parking at the light rail stations rather than having to pay to park in a surface lot (which is why the use of eminent domain worries a lot of people in the first place, because it can become an instrument of mob rule). What I find most interesting about this is that it potentially makes the Evergreen Freedom Foundation and pro-transit groups – who don’t want lots of parking at light rail stops – temporary allies. [via Balko]
– Finally, Dominic Holden ridicules our Attorney General.
I like Ian Welsh’s reply to Nate Silver on health care. Myself, I suspect Ian is right. Our analysts are forgetting than an improvement on the average that nonetheless drives many into bankruptcy is likely to have a huge political backlash, quite apart from its cruelty.
So, Sea-Tac wants to make the area around the Link prettier. It wants to eminent domain to do it. This is not whit it was intended for. Kelo vs. New Haven was the worst Supreme court Decision since the 1970s. I hope the owner fights the decision. I will stand with him if he does. You can fight city hall.
Re “…the condition of our health care system now is so much worse than in any of those previous years. It’s possible that the demand for reform from the public will not subside like it did in previous years.”
No, demand for reform may not subside in future years, but the Democratic majorities in the Congress almost certainly will. They are at a high water mark now. The compromises necessary to get something done in the future with smaller majorities (or none) will surely be worse.
(dupe post – Deleted by author)
This train wreck of a bill is so frustrating. How come the repubs can delay by having bills read into the record, but Reed won’t have republicans have to actually filibuster, stand up there and babble for hours and hours and hours to stall? The current dems are spineless.
I’m for voting to abandon it and then abandoning every democrat who did not fight for a better bill. Right now, I’m not voting for Obama in the primary or the general election. I’m still deciding if I want to support Murry or Cantwell.
What do you all think? Are either of them worth supporting in the next cycle?
Merry CHRISTmas to all my CHRISTian brothers at HA…especially you rhp!
And for those of you who hate CHRIST,
Merry KLOWNmas!
Here is the status of the KLOWN Puppeteer–
You Leftist Pinheaded Klowns are a bunch of Sock Puppets…with Obam-Mao’s hand securely up your ass!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
If it hasn’t become evident that the curtain has been pulled back on the Wizard of Oz and he’s been shown to have been manipulating all the political machinery behind the two-party puppet show, then what will?
I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of supposedly smart ‘progressives’ being suckered into Three Card Monte games all the time, and turning to the rest of us with stricken faces, complaining of how they don’t know why they keep get ‘took’ all the time.
The 2006 Election was supposed to signal “No more Harvey Milquetoasts! Put the damn gloves on and start swinging!”
But what’s happened since then? The only thing that’s been swung on the progressives side politically have been rather shriveled, limp ‘cods’. Not a single punch has landed where it needed to, and this health care debacle is just one more embarrassment.
Time for some House (and Senate) cleaning to get rid of ineffectual political dust-bunnies and get some heavyweight prizefighters for a change. Enough of this dojo-dancing and kabuki. Time for busted bottles and eye-jabs.
Recipe for “Health Care Stew”: Simmer for nine months, strain out all the good stuff, have 100 old men barf in it and then throw it away.
Blue John asks
That’s Senate parliamentary procedure. Nobody follows it much but that’s the way the Senate operates.
Remember when Puddy delivered to you HA Leftists Nancy Pelosi’s famous Feb 2009 words on health care… “We won, we don’t need you”.
Now the other problem is you have a president who looks at problems one way, sees the polls turn and goes after the problem the other way. It’s so easy to figure out but you HA leftists don’t look things up. This person who you voted for doesn’t dig his feet in the ground and say I’m not moving. Nope, he triangulates on each and every problem to make sure he can claim victory no matter the outcome. Take for instance Big Pharma…
On 06-04-08 Senator Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm said this: “A truly meaningful prescription drug program should provide a benefit that seniors can understand and count on to reduce the cost of these drugs.” To help lower the cost of these drugs, Senator Obama has supported efforts to allow American seniors to purchase prescription drugs in Canada and bring ’em back to the US.” He carried the same message onto his pre-inauguration web site.
Senator Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm said on 08-08 “Then we’ll tell the pharmaceutical companies, “Thanks but no thanks for overpriced drugs.” Drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada and Mexico. We’ll let Medicare negotiate for lower prices. We’ll stop drug companies from blocking generic drugs that are just as effective and far less expensive. We’ll allow the safe re-importation of low-cost drugs from countries like Canada. Number two: We’re gonna focus on prevention, on promoting wellness rather than just managing sickness.”
Then Puddy delivered to you HA Leftists Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm whitey house private meetings with Big Pharma. Go see the memo yourselves. Then when the liberal MSM found out a lot of nay saying occurred.
“As a candidate for president, Barack Obama lambasted drug companies and the influence they wielded in Washington. He even ran a television ad targeting the industry’s chief lobbyist, former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.
Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president’s partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he eventually secured an agreement that the administration wouldn’t try to overturn the very Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized on the campaign trail.
“The White House blessed it,” Tauzin said.”
Then Puddy delivered to you May 2009 the 130-page “Patients Choice Act of 2009.” This was a joint effort by House and Senate Republicans. correctnotright missed this with his continual attacks on Marvin.
Then Puddy delivered to you June 2009 Jim DeMint’s 41-page proposal, “Health Care Freedom Plan.” correctnotright missed this with his continual attacks on Marvin.
Then Puddy delivered to you July 2009 Tom Price’s 130-page “Empowering Patients First Act.” correctnotright missed this with his continual attacks on Marvin.
None of these were discussed in the liberal MSM. Maybe that’s why correctnotright missed this with his continual attacks on Marvin.
It’s your own president and your own party who chose to reject anything Republican, put so much crap into the bill, say abortion isn’t covered yet it is in Pelosi’s bill… Check out line 16, page 96, section 213, under “Insurance Rating Rules.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services. Or you can check out line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed”. One person says one thing only to be contradicted or found out to be a liar when the bill is read. So much for C-SPAN showing every meeting and deliberation in real time. Like last week when Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm met with Senate Democratics behind closed doors breaking that promise.
So much more to write but why should Puddy act like Roger Dumb Bunny?
It just adds more ammunition to those, like Matt Taibbi, who have come to believe that Obama has little interest in challenging the corporate corruption that continues to dominate our political system.
In that case Obama would be the “hypocritical jackass” since his campaign sold the public a much different narrative. On issue after issue he’s flopped or hasn’t come near to matching his rhetoric. Here’s Milbank, yesterday:
“On the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to take on the drug industry by allowing Americans to import cheaper prescription medicine. “We’ll tell the pharmaceutical companies ‘thanks, but no, thanks’ for the overpriced drugs — drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada,” he said back then.
“On Tuesday, the matter came to the Senate floor — and President Obama forgot the “no, thanks” part. Siding with the pharmaceutical lobby, the administration successfully fought against the very idea Obama had championed.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....on/columns
Of course, during the campaign there were a few who questioned Obama’s sincerity, but they didn’t receive much of a voice – an understatement, to be sure – but that was then. Now, many of those who swore by Obama are turning deeply critical: Howard Dean, MoveOn.org, Bernie Sanders, John Conyers and a host of progressives pundits (I wonder if Chris Matthews is still getting that chill up his leg?), and I have an idea this is just getting started (just watch as Afghanistan heats up and those casualty counts rocket).
Maybe they should be looking in the mirror, eh?
The issue is not Joe Lieberman, so let’s but that to rest.
@10
In that case Obama would be the “hypocritical jackass” since his campaign sold the public a much different narrative.
Exactly.
cyn, I know it’s Senate parliamentary procedure. What I’m objecting to is that repubs seems to be skilled at using it ruthlessly, while the dems keep being nice and rolling over on their backs and asking to have their bellies rubbed. Reed keeps giving the repubs passes and playing nice and expecting the repubs to reciprocate.
I admire how the repubs use the rules as a club, and appalled at how the dems keep acting like a battered spouse, wondered why they are being abused AGAIN.
I’m voting against all spineless dems I’m allowed to, in the next cycle, even if that puts repubs in.
You forget the tactics used by Chucky Stolen Social Security Numbers Schumer when he played the same game against SCOTUS nominees John Roberts and Sam Alito? Such memory issues on your side.
And yet, John Roberts and Sam Alito are still on the supreme court. It’s not like what the dems did, stopped anything.
What I want is most of the house and senate to think like like progressives, but act like republicans. Then we’d get things done right.
Blue John,
Again look at the bill Nancy Pelosi wrote. Once people started reading it they woke up to the real issues.
The liberal media sold the public on who oba-mao was.
The liberal media would not allow any hard/serious questions to be asked of the messiah.
The liberal media put more effort into finding out about joe the plumber than they did finding out about oba-mao.
Why did it take a year for the liberal media to mention rev wright when hannity had been exposing the connection between oba-ma/wright for a year.
The liberal media got someone with no real life experience and a history of avoiding decisions by voting “present” 130 times elected.
The main problem is that the Democrats are being swallowed by “incrimental compromise”.
It works like this: You are bargaining with someone over a rug in a bazzar. The seller wants $100.00, you say you will only pay $10.00. You haggle for a while, you really didn’t want to pay more than $35.00, but you eventually settle at $50.00, and shake hands.
Then the seller says he can’t sell it for this low without the approval of his manager. He gets his manager, who acts really disgusted with the salesman, seems to chastise him in a foreign language, then politely apologizes to you, asks you to forgive him for employing such an incompetent fool, and explains that the salesman is new. He says he can’t possibly sell the rug for $50.00, it is too high quality, and he paid much more than that himself for the rug. He says the least he could sell it to you is $80.00.
By now you’ve already become attached to the rug. You’ve figured out where you will put it into your house. And the seller offers to ship it home to you, for free. But you want to stand fast at $50.00. The manager then asks that since you were willing to pay $50.00 for the rug, wouldn’t you be willing to pay $60.00? After all, it’s only ten bucks more. He says he will still ship it to you for free. You agree.
Then he says that to sell it at such a ridiculously low price, or to get approval for the shipping arrangements, he has to get the owner’s approval. The owner appears suddenly, and the process repeates itself. Now the price is up to $75.00, and the free shipping offer is gone – he wants you to pre-pay $10.00 for shipping. About now you realize that all the shops are closing in the bazzar, and if you don’t agree to buy it for $75.00, you are going to go home empty-handed, despite promising your wife you were going to pick up a rug for her at the bazzar. You agree, even though you are now laying out $85.00 for a rug you only wanted to buy for $35.00.
After you arrive home, the rug arrives a few days later. Shipping is collect, you have to pay the driver before he unloads, he says he doesn’t know anything about pre-paid shipping, and you have to take that up with the shipper. You pay for shipping charges – $25.00. Then the driver plops the package off his truck and drives off. You open the package, and discover it’s not even the rug you bought, it’s a much cheaper and shabby rug – it even has stains on it where it had been used before.
Anyway, that’s what it’s been like trying to get the health care bill passed. Everytime we compromise to get the bill passed, somebody else who had apparantly agreed up to that point, jumps in to object, resulting in “incremental compromise”.
And the result is pretty much like the shabby, used rug the purchaser gets in this transaction.
So rhp6033,
You think young people are going to buy mandatory insurance or pay the fine? Pelosi has it at $$$Thousands while the Senate has it at $750.
Lee
What sense is there in Boeing making 787’s and delivering babies?
I disagree on one point. I think the current proposal is awfully close to what BHO proposed during the campaign.
The Obama 08 proposal might be called “stealthcare.” It argued that spreading the market, making more companies compete and clarifying the role of insurance vs paid service would cause prices to evolve downward
It seems to me that a major problem, and my own criticism of BHO, is that he has been too willing to let healthcare be too many different issues. Cost containment and adding subsidies for those not able to obtain insurance are very different things. One reason for high costs is the cacophony of how we deliver healthcare.
A major 08 goal was to create a mechanism to narrow the differences in financial models of healthcare. Seattle is a microcosm with Group Health, Unifrom (state), Primera all being very different buit akk costing about the same. On the provider end, the Swedish system with its for profit provider network in orbit around a non profit central entity is hard to reconcile with the more or less socialized medicne at Harborview.
My own biggest worry is that the luddite behavior of the Repricans means that no real reforms, esp reforms that do involve conservative issues, can get discussed. For example, BHO has not fought against the idea of union/corporate healthcare. The American concept of employers as healthcare provides is a major reason for excess medical inflation. Ending this inane system, however, causes heartburn in the unions.
The union opposition to a cadillac healthcare tax is a great example of self interest of an organization getting in the way of reform. I am willing to bet that a huge part of the costs of any big union is paid off via the cashflow associated with healthcare.
Obama was a God damned idiot to pick passage of health care reform as the first and foremost priority of his administration, and he’s been even dumber to waste an entire year in stubborn pursuit of it in the face of the opposition’s stated intent to do whatever it takes, however grotesque, immoral or illegal that may be, to make sure it fails.
The great mass of people who voted for him did so because they wanted to keep their jobs and homes (or get them back), stop the war, end the atrocities being committed in their names, and get the government out of their private business.
Except for the government getting more involved in peoples private healthcare.
Puddy @ 18: I don’t like mandatory health care insurance without cost controls on the price of the policy. It just makes sense – every state that I know of (except Washington) which requires mandatory auto insurance also requires the approval of the insurance commissioner on any price increases. Same with utilities, whether they are public or privately owned. At the very least the government should insist that insurance policies have a minimum level of coverage (limited pre-existing exclusion coverage, no denials of coverage based on application omissions AFTER a claim has been submitted, etc.).
At this point I don’t see enough redeeming qualities in the bill. If we can’t at least get a public option, or lowering the medicare eligibility age, or price controls, then I’m not going to require health insurance to be purchased. If we can’t meet those minimum levels of health care reform, ditch the bills and come back next year, after Kennedy’s replacement is sworn in.
I’d rather have my health care coverage dictated by a government worker, who’s at least doing it based upon a rule book, than a health-insurance company adjuster who’s making arbitrary claims based on his boss’s insistence that they increase profits by at least 10% over the next quarter by “cracking down” on “frivilous claims”.
By the way, I’m still trying to get some of my medical bills paid from my little E.R. visit last June. The insurance company initially rejected the bills as being duplicate (I was treated at a clinic first before they sent me to the hospital). Then they asked for more information, which we collected from both the clinic and the hospital. Then they asked for the hospital to re-submit the bill. Now they keep rejecting the re-submitted bill as a “duplicate” of the claim which was previously rejected. If I don’t get them to pay it by January 1st, then they will impose a new deductable against the bill. This is better than dealing with the government???????
“Obama was a God damned idiot to pick passage of health care reform as the first and foremost priority of his administration, and he’s been even dumber to waste an entire year in stubborn pursuit of it…”
As Obama admitted fairly soon after he took office, the number and scale of difficulty facing him multiplied several times in the few months between his nomination and his assumption of office. I think his original plan was to deal with Iraq quickly, then send some troops to Afganistan, then put health care reform in play by spring, hoping to get a bill signed before the August recess.
But in the meantime the economy crashed, the wall street debacle of the fall of 2008 turned into a full-fledged banking crisis by January of 2009, and the Afganistan war flared up to the point where previous strategies had to be re-examined. Instead of being able to knock out problems in a row, they have proved resistent to resolution, and he’s now finding himself having to deal with an increasing number of problems at the same time.
Republican obstructionism hasn’t helped matters, it’s clear their policy is to create an impression that unless he hits a home run every time, he’s failed. In doing so they forget that these are issues important to the American people, not merely a partison battle.
“Except for the government getting more involved in peoples private healthcare.”
In this case, not so bad. Having Big Pharma and Big Insurance looking around inside your intestines for short-term profit is even worse.
left-wingnut central dailypus is reporting that the kerry-boxer bill creates $21 billion dollar surplus.
In order to create a surplus, all one has to do is overcharge for services rendered.
Sounds democratic to me.
Don’t blame the republicans for the failures of oba-mao.
He has more of a majority than bush ever had, and look what bush was able to accomplish despite the democrats and the liberal media trying their best to stop him.
Oba-mao is a failed leader. Voting “present” doesn’t make leaders.
Puddy–
Please check your e-mail.
Unbelievable documentation about our Governor and Dept. of Ecology in action.
SEIU Urges Changes In Senate Health Care Bill, Calls Out Obama
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....95411.html
Well, this is all becoming rather internecine as the Dems devour one another.
Let the games begin!
ps I understand Roger Rabbit is offering a Web class entitled, “Web Nav for Highly Effective People, or Why Use One Click When You Can Use Five”:
http://horsesass.org/?p=23133
See @33. Go Rabbit! (Please)
Good one John.
If you want to link to a specific comment, click on the date/time and it will put the link to that comment in the address bar.
http://horsesass.org/?p=23133#comment-970272
Since SeaTac had ample opportunity to buy the property on the open market, it will be interesting how the courts rule.
New mandate coming: All Americans must buy a GM car or face heavy fines.
Well, this is all becoming rather internecine as the Dems devour one another.
Yup, we just want the politicians to grow a spine and live up to what they promised.
Did you notice SoS Clinton @ Copenhagen pledged $100 Billion/year for supporting developing nations against climategate… um… globalwarming… uhhh… climatechange…
Isn’t China still considered a developing nation? So are we gonna borrow the $100 Billion from China to give them some of it back while we’re in hock for the interest payments?
PRICELESS!
@33 But-but-but-but….doesn’t America have “the greatest economy in the world”?
Oh, I get it…it’s OK to admit it’s fucked up when you have a Democrat in the White House to blame it on.
I suppose in another week or two all the Republicans will abandon their chant that ours is “the best health care system in the world” and instead start whining that it’s screwed up and….oh, the horror! The horror!…Obama didn’t do anything to fix it!
Awww Poor ArtFart the Jewish hater himself. Got anymore anti-semitic hate material available?
What does that comment@34 have to do with giving China climate $$$ as a developing nation?
Hey ArtFart you pal Hugo Chavez was in Copenhagen…
“Capitalism is a destructive development model that is putting an end to life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.”
So how will the $100 Billion be payed if capitalism fails Hugo?
Hugo Chavez a schmuck just like ArtFart.
“Got anymore anti-semitic hate material available?”
How about that! Puddy grows a spine when he catches Artfart in a verbal fuckup. Geez. I wonder if we will now we hear him ask Mr. Klynical if he’s “got anymore funny nigger jokes?” I doubt it. The ethically challenged and spineless Puddy, he of the broken moral compass, has long shown his love for right-wing racism, even when directed at Puddy’s own “peeps”.
@36 Hugo said that? Seems to pretty well jibe with that 45-page tome that recently came out of the Vatican.
@28 If Cyn likes it, it’s probably unbelievable indeed.
@37 Pudnutz appears to have popped another little aneurysm or two today.
Puddybud @ 18:
You know what? I’m not paying for this piece of shit bill either.
I’m not paying any God Damn fines, either.
And, before I go to prison for not paying the fines the Tree of Liberty will be watered!!
I want health care reform in the form of single payer, or at the very least a ROBUST public option.
Trying to appease the right-wing darling Joe Lie-bermann and Olympia Snowe has totally fucked this bill up.
Kill the bill and ram Medicare for All through reconciliation — NOW!
@40 He’s operating at an insane level of batshit crazy each and every day.
Hey steve–
Let’s talk about Tollycraft Yacht…ok?
FYI–
This just in from Employment Security!
Employment Security up 2.4%
Workers Comp up 7.6%
You KLOWNS want Health Care to go up and Income Taxes.
Kill business in Washington.
Let’s all work for the guv’mint!
GBS spews–
Can’t do it that way GBS.
Will be fun to watch if y’all try though.
What are the chances of the Democrats and Obama fdoing this GBS??
Try ZERO!
Pinch yourself.
Wake up.
Your fantasies are scarey.
ArtFart,
Pop an aneurysm? Hardly fool. It was your anti-semite words against Lieberman eh?
Steve Steve Steve,
He disappears from Jeremiah 42:18 and magically reappears now.
Dude you lose!
Your good buds in the House put that $$$Thousands No Insurance Fine in their bill GBS. That’s their prompt way of making sure you buy insurance.
Aren’t House Democratics Nice?
Puddy @ 47:
Don’t confuse the two issues. I don’t mind paying for health insurance. And, I’m OK with it being mandatory.
What I’m not OK with is how the Democrats in trying to work with Republicans have made yet ANOTHER giveaway to insurance companies.
The only way to provide for real competition to health insurance companies is with a huge single payer option or a robust public option.
Although, I’m not surprised that you couldn’t discern that for yourself.
Why wouldn’t the democrats help out the insurance companies.
The health insurance companies donate more to democrats for a reason.
Even opensecrets knows democrats get more $ from health insurance companies since 1989.
Follow the money.
What a crock!
How can you fairly compete when the other team has the ability to change the rules as they want, and don’t have to actually make a profit and has taxpayers to keep them afloat.
The post office lost $3.8 billion last year, $1 billion more than the year before.
What private company could lose that kind of money without going out of business?
To believe a private company could compete with the government is batshit crazy.