Three New Ideas That Put Working People First by Reforming Market Power
Healthcare, transportation, and the care economy are each captured by giant corporations or private equity, resulting in higher costs and horrible service. Three new articles from Open Markets staff in the new issue of The Washington Monthly point toward solutions.
WASHINGTON– Three new articles published today in The Washington Monthly by Open Markets staff Philip Longman and Audrey Stienon examine three industries with an outsized influence on the cost and fairness of American life.
In “Medicare Prices for All,” Open Markets policy director Phillip Longman builds on over two decades of study of America’s healthcare system to present a simple yet effective plan to address the tremendous healthcare costs passed on to workers: tie employer health care plans to Medicare reimbursement rates. This would remove monopoly rents from greedy healthcare giants and return them to the American people.
In “Corporate-Proof the Care Economy,” Audrey Stienon, Open Markets industrial policy program manager, warns that America’s care economy is at risk of being entirely captured by big corporations and private equity, turning services into nightmares for working class families. Government investments in care, whether from states or the federal government, must address corporate control before our markets for providing child, disability, and elder care become as exploited and broken as our healthcare system.
In “Make Transportation Fair Again,” Phillip Longman shows how deregulation of airlines, freight rail, and trucking has created harms ranging from ever worse service levels and price discrimination to a hollowing out of industrial America and dramatic increases in carbon emissions. By restoring basic principles of fairness that, until the 1980s governed transportation markets throughout our history, Americans have the opportunity to build a cleaner, more efficient, more balanced, and equitable economy.
“Regulation of prices and terms of service was historically a key part of America’s secret formula for building equality of opportunity and broad prosperity, particularly in sectors that are foundational to the rest of the economy,” said Longman. “Policymakers consistently overlook these policy tools, which allows big corporations and private equity investors to squeeze out record profits while working people suffer.”
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