big oil

Because the federal government has so grossly exceeded its Constitution-delimited authorities, we pay way more attention to national politics than the Founding Fathers intended or wanted.

Big Healthcare is no exception, and it is important to understand just what healthcare is. The trillions of dollars of revenue sucked in by Big Healthcare are not just for medical care. “Healthcare” is mainly concerned with collecting and distributing the money. Perhaps half of the money gushing through the system pays nurses, doctors, orderlies, receptionists, or therapists, or buys medications, oxygen concentrators, wheelchairs, bandages, or x-ray machines. The rest is diverted to something else. It’s hard to figure out just how much because insurers may, in calculating the “medical loss ratio,” call a lot of things “healthcare” that you might call “administration.”

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has often talked about his desire for the United States to emulate the socialist welfare states of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden by providing free college and health care and expanding Social Security. Sanders also wants to ban oil, natural gas, and coal production on lands owned by the federal government, and he has called for a ban on hydraulic fracturing, which has dramatically increased production of oil and natural gas in the United States.