Florida Democrats in Congress hold out for lower health care costs to no avail. Affordability has become the big issue in politics now
News for thoughtful Floridians and other Americans
When the House of Representatives voted to end the government shutdown yesterday, every single Democrat from Florida held fast and did not buckle to Republican demands.
In fact, one Florida Republican, Gregory Steube from Sarasota, joined Democrats in opposing the Senate bill that utterly failed to address the most pressing issue causing the shutdown in the first place:
The skyrocketing costs of health insurance.
Unless something unanticipated comes out of Congress in the next few weeks, Obamacare subsidies will vanish and millions in Florida—and the nation—will suddenly find themselves uninsured.
This is all part of a piece of a larger picture:
Affordability.
This has become the new buzzword in the wake of the Democrats’ stunning victories in nationwide elections earlier this month, and the rising cost of health care is only one piece of that picture.
In Florida, especially, other costs, such as electricity, are outpacing inflation and pressuring household finances.
According to an analysis by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 34 percent of households around the country “reduced or forwent necessities to pay an energy bill in 2024, up from 29 percent in 2021.” The study also noted that “22 percent of households kept their homes at an unsafe or unhealthy temperature.”
Florida residents, in particular, have been hard-hit, especially because of the costs electric utilities have passed on to residential customers to cover storm damage and the need to harden infrastructure against future weather threats.
Other factors, including rising fuel costs, have also contributed to the price hikes:
And anyone who has been grocery shopping lately doesn’t need to be told about the rising food prices.
One of the big issues during the government shutdown was the threat that food stamps would be cut off. An eye-popping statistic that emerged was that one in eight Floridians depends on food stamps to keep from going hungry.
Which begs a larger question: What the heck is going on in the United States when so many people need assistance like this?
One answer is self-evident: Wages simply haven’t kept up with the rising costs of everything, from food to cars, from electricity to rent.
The high cost of living, as we reported here earlier, has prompted at least 25 percent of the state’s residents to seriously consider moving out of Florida.
Ironically, Florida voters, in their wisdom, have been far ahead of their political leaders on this issue. The state’s minimum wage is now $14 an hour because of a ballot initiative forced upon the state by voters.
Compare Florida’s minimum wage to the U.S. government’s paltry $7.25 an hour. It’s a disgrace.
The U.S. minimum wage was established at the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s. At the time, it was 25 cents an hour.
Yep, a dollar was really worth something back then.
Had the federal minimum wage kept up with inflation and productivity, it would be between $23 and $26 an hour today, according to various estimates.
So, yes, good on Floridians for having the sense to raise the state’s wage minimums, but even with that, far too many people are on food assistance and are struggling with all these other rising costs. And it’s about to get much worse.
Affordability.
It is shaping up to be the big issue here in Florida and across the nation.
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Economist/Futurist Michael Hudson often points out that in the 19th century, America's industrial capitalists encouraged the government to build public infrastructure—roads, bridges, canals, railroads, and public education—to minimize costs and obtain benefits of efficiency. They also treated workers as assets and provided them such benefits as to insure productivity, such as housing, healthcare, and healthy food. Their motto was that "highly paid American workers can outcompete the pauperized workforce of Europe."
We know that capitalism lost its way when it became dominated by finance capitalism and in time, neoliberalism.
China did not have this problem because after the victory of the Red Army, Chinese finance capitalists grabbed all the loot they could carry and fled to Taiwan or to America's Chinatowns. Thus the PRC behaves much like earlier American industrial capitalists, but applied to the whole population. Chinese workers pay about 10% of their income for housing, enjoy free education from infancy to PhD, have access to healthcare, are able to easily travel all over the country on efficient highspeed rail and other forms of transportation. Thus, a Chinese worker who makes $8/hour lives better than an American worker at $32/hour.
In terms of democracy, China's form is vibrant and active, starting at the local level. It just doesn't look like the West's liberal democracy with its campaigns, election contributions, and facile debates.
This is not a mystery that can only exist in exotic China, but one that can be emulated everywhere, initially by getting rid of the parasites of financial capitalism (send them to Taiwan? Ukraine?), then practicing genuine democracy to sort out the future.
Thanks, Mr Bruce. I love reading your essays and I adore Ms Mingo!