December 15th Has Come And Gone - Denninger (Medical care will collapse.....which might get our attention.....maybe? - CL)

 ... with no action on anything to ameliorate health care costs.

Not out of Trump, nor Congress.

Nothing.

I remind you that Trump when campaigning for his first term promised everyone the same price and greatly-reduced cost.  Enforcing 15 USC Chapter 1 would have done this.  He could have gone further, of course, and done something like this plan that I've had out there for a long time.

But he didn't in his first term and hasn't now either despite having 11 months to act on it and knowing that Biden's "patch" to Obamacare was going to expire.

The 15th was the deadline for January 1st coverage, so as of this morning that ship has sailed.  Next month on the 15th the window closes for the year unless you have a substantial change in personal circumstances.

As I've pointed out many times CMS is the "beast" of the Federal Budget.  Without controlling cost there is no answer to the problem because taking away what people have paid for their entire lives (Medicare) because Government has allowed the wild-eyed expansion of cost without regard to whether its even legal (its not, and two Supreme Court cases 40 years ago have destroyed any claim of a valid exemption too) is untenable.  Nor are you likely to be able to politically get rid of Medicaid without some sort of replacement that actually works.  The plan I put forward linked above does get rid of it because it replaces it with a superior option but again, without returning cost to the 4% of GDP level none of it matters because the exponential growth in said cost is now destroying both private business and the government.....

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=254617 

....This simply cannot continue but if we slash cost by forcing everyone to post a price and charge everyone the same price just as is the case at your local gas station, where you know how much the gas costs before you pump it and everyone pays the same then the market will take care of the rest.

If the law is simply enforced in this regard costs will drop by 80% almost immediately.

Yes, that means 80% of the people currently employed in such endeavors will be laid off; they are the ones who do not actually provide care to people, nor direct support (such as the janitor who mops the floors or the cook in the kitchen.)  Yes, that dislocation in the economy will be huge -- but also short-lived because with it will come a 15% reduction in the cost of employing basically everyone else through the economy and that will, in turn, mean greatly-improved productivity and hiring in all other sectors.

Never mind that when (not if) it all comes apart, and it is doing so right now, you won't have access to said care at all because a system that can't be funded will collapse of its own weight.