It’s All About Competition Until They Have To Actually, You Know, Compete
When It comes to health Insurance… health insurance companies have no incentive to offer a good product at a fair price. Not only do they see nothing wrong in peddling crap, they want us to defend and protect their right to peddle crap. How they wrap gouging in the American Flag while screaming socialism escapes me. Since when is it patriotic or capitalistic to pay top dollar for an inferior product?
And let’s face it, the writing has been on the health insurance wall for decades. Not that they’ve bothered reading it, or made even the smallest attempt to change the small print – which, ultimately may have changed their fate. Oh no, they’ve behaved as if the government option was inevitable and, therefore, justified their obscene profits with their equally obscene lack of service. It’s as if they knew the end game and calculated how much money they could make until the inevitable happened.
The facts bear out this theory:
Today, as President Obama pushes for a sweeping reform, the system has eroded to the point that the data alone capture the urgent need not just for an overhaul of the existing system, but for the creation of a public health insurance option that will guarantee health insurance for all Americans. As the number of uninsured has risen to staggering levels – an estimated 50 million Americans will not have health insurance this year – the traditional model of employer-sponsored health insurance has been shown to be seriously flawed. Americans who once worried about losing health insurance if they lost their jobs now must entertain the possibility that their employers will not offer health insurance, or that the premiums will make it unaffordable. Minorities, children, and low-income households are at greater risk of going uninsured.
Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. If health insurance companies are okay with these numbers, then they’ll get exactly what they deserve – extinction. Go on and trot out the tired old argument about waiting for a hip replacement, but, the truth is, if taking yourself, or your child, to a doctor is something you can’t afford, hip replacements and seeing a specialist are the stuff dreams are made of.
—Although the majority of Americans under the age of 65, about 63%, have employer-sponsored health insurance, coverage has been steadily declining since 2000, even during periods when overall employment grew. Some 3 million fewer people had employment-based insurance in 2007 than in 2000. This loss of coverage was especially steep among children, where employer-sponsored health coverage dropped from 66% in 2000 to less than 60% in 2007. While still providing coverage to a majority of children, it is a slim majority that is getting smaller all the time.
—Average premiums for an employer-sponsored family plan have risen nearly 120% since 1999, three and a half times faster than workers’ earnings and more than four times faster than inflation. One of the reasons some workers do not have coverage is that they cannot afford the high premiums. This problem has hit low-income workers the hardest, although coverage levels have also fallen for college-educated workers.
—Fewer than half of all Hispanic Americans have health insurance through an employer. The rate of coverage among this group fell to 41.4% in 2002, from 45.8% last year. Among African Americans, only a slim majority have employer coverage: 51.6%, down from 56.1% in 2000.
—Workers in the service sector are highly unlikely to have health insurance through their employers. The coverage level among this group was just 29.5% in 2007. Fewer than half of all workers at small businesses with fewer than 24 employees had employer-sponsored health insurance from their own job.
Another example of greed run amuck. Personally, I won’t shed a tear over the loss of these leeches. They had their chance to save themselves and chose, instead, to pad their bank account. Good riddance.
Tags: Health Care
Everyone who has ever had to try and get their insurance company to do the right thing shares your sentiment.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/05/15/the-doctor-will-see-you-when-appointment-wait-times-in15-cities.aspx
And you can point to this study when people bitch about wait times in Canada.
The reason winguts are so scared of socialism is because they know it will be popular.
I think the insurers know that the writing is on the wall. That’s why they are eager to sit at the table with Obama’s team, because they know if they don’t they’ll be left out. I just wonder what kind of mess is going to come out of the current mess. I think the public option is an absolute must. I figure we’ll end up with some kind of wimpy public option, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fixed later, I hope.
The public option will be a diasaster. It will cost more than advertised and will not cover everyone.
There is not one service “provided” by the government not wrought with inefficiency and waste.
You seem to forget this public option will have to be heavily subsidized and will lead to a government takeover and a reduction in health care quality.
The key item is the huge difference betweeen National Health Care which is a farce and Universal Care which is a must.
If this blog has the courage to allow it I can provide a post to explain but I am sure you will not.
Mike Protack
“The public option will be a diasaster”
Mike, even if you’re right, IT”S STILL BETTER THAN WHAT WE HAVE NOW. I find it interesting that when Bill Clinton tried the same thing with healthcare, it failed miserably because the Insurance Lobby went nuts on the proposal. I think UI is right in that somehow the insurance carriers, close to the biggest reason that health care is so expensive, will find a way to mess this up 🙂
We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world, by all measures. We’re paying almost 2X more per person than any other country in the world, and we cover less people. We also are at the bottom of the developed world in measures of public health, such as infant mortality.
I know Republicans think it is some kind of disaster if you have to wait for an elective surgery, but healthcare in the U.S. is already rationed. It’s rationed between the haves and the have nots and we all have to wait to see a doctor.
Medicare and Medicaid are public options and the people I know on Medicare are pretty happy with it. Don’t know anything about Medicaid. The drawback for both is the reimbursement rate, which doesn’t cover (rising)costs all that well and nor do those reimbursements provide many incentives for docs to actually see those patients.
That survey was amazing, LG — the business about the shortage of doctors and nurses becoming more visible once more folks are covered by insurance was sobering. But no reason to not do the insurance.
Last year I proposed DELACARE which put all of Delaware in one single pool and coverage for all with a basic plan to be determined by a board contained in the Delaware Health Care Commission. Choice within the plan is allowed and personal responsibililty is required.
Every Insurance company would compete for our single pool business on a 5 year` term.
Wellness, Productivity and Security
Choice, Competition and Responsibility
Everyone Is In, No One Is Out and Everyone Pays Their Fair Share
Mike Protack
The real leeches are the parasitical trial lawyers. John Edwards could afford to buy a mansion, a Senate seat, and a mistress.
What is the cost of defensive medicine that has no clinical value?
What part of health care is diverted to malpractice insurance premiums?
How many health insurance firms are pass-through entities?
Given the splendid cost effectiveness of government-run schools. should we expect more from bureaucrat-controlled health care?
Yet there is always an enthusiasm for an offer of a free lunch. Then the bill is presented.
How many Americans are going off shore for medical treatment? Just what is the direction of the traffic flow?
you are like a walking poster boy for cluelessness.
Do you have a strawman tattooed on your forearm?
Oh and UAW workers make $72 an hour. you forgot that one.
It’s a ridiculous and false argument. As someone who has family living in Canada, Italy, Germany, England and Australia I can tell you – while no system is perfect – they wouldn’t trade their health care system for our’s.
Lawyers are terrible, that’s why the RNC is spending big bucks on them in a doomed quest to keep Al Franken out of the Senate. Just like with government spending, it’s the other guy’s trial lawyers that are bad.