Economic Inequities

I am wondering more and more about economic inequities.  I'm not thinking about CRT, or critical race theory, or anything else that defines the gaps between poor and disadvantaged and just poor.  No doubt they are large and important, but rather about two areas that could with easy fixes improve the lives of millions of people, black, white, Asian, etc.  A few years ago, before I made it to the golden years when social security kicked in and when I was using regular health insurance that often had limited coverage, I found myself in a position where one of my family needed mental health counseling.  The cost of that counseling for the three visits that the health insurance covered most  of the cost and the Doctor got instead of $240, he just received $ 80...Doctor and the provider they had cut a deal.   But when these three visits covered by the insurance plan were done, and I had to keep going to see the same doctor, then my out of pocket went up to $240 an hour.  For the health care guys he said -- "Okay, $ 80 is a good rate or at least I can live with it if I have to because...."  he had people like me and other people who were paying full price to  cover the difference.   Moral of the story -- if you are poor, if you have no insurance coverage, if your insurance is unwilling to pay, then you are expected to subsidize the lucky people who have an  insurance company working for them or more honestly for their shareholders bottom line.   This creates economic inequity and its not necessary.  We could fix it and Obama Care is trying to do that. If everyone is on one form of insurance and if a standard rate for charges is established, as it is with the Medicare systems rate schedule,  with some maximum rate to charge people without insurance set by that schedule.  If the general rate has to go up for medicare payments to cover losses, then it should go up and set the floor for insurance companies as well.   Prices will more back towards reasonable rates for everything from doctors visits, to tests, to hospital stays.

This is one easy to fix inequity, a second one is even easier.  If you have good   credit, then you are offered lower rates, but if your credit is shot then you are in hock for life.  No one in his right mind should want to pay 28% a year for interest on the debt owed.  They used to drive money changers out of the Temple, and we need anti-usury laws that set maximum rates for revolving credit based on rates set by the Federal Reserve or even some Prime Lending rate plus a few percent for risk.  If you reduced the usury then you would have more people able to pay down their debt and the economy would grow more strongly.  Simple to solve.  Again its always the poor, the disadvantaged, the weakest citizens who are taken to the cleaners. 

Forget Infrastructure -- concentrate on solving these two problems and you will have people saying -- yes, it impacts me, so what if the bridge falls down in Tennessee, each month I see what I am paying in needless interest or out of pocket medical bills that I know other people don't have to pay, not because the insurance company is paying, but because the doctors and hospitals will accept a smaller amount.  Truth in lending and truth in medical cost bills should be the Democrats next priority.