Upfront, let me tell you I was hugely disappointed when the public option and/or single payer got shelved in the formation of Obamacare. And as one in the health care industry I was amazed that candidate Obama was willing to trust the health insurance industry to do the right thing for a revamped health insurance public policy, having seen them in action up close and professionally. But, I hung in there, reluctantly, as health policy got formulated by my President’s new administration and our Party in congress.
But, how quickly we forget the outrageous ethics of the insurance industry in their non-coverage of so called pre-existing conditions, cancellation of policies when people got sick and non-renewal of policies for families with high risk. This was routine corporate behavior back in the day. Did we hear anything from Republican policy makers about complete lack of ethics from this industry regarding such treatment of the 85% of the American public covered by so-called high end, employer based insurance? Hell no. Not one word. For that matter, not much either from corporate conservadems.
So, now, candidate Obama is pilloried by these clowns for having made a perfectly reasonable generalization, aimed at the vast 85% majority of the electorate who were employer insured, that they would keep their insurance under his plan. He even advocated building in a grandfathering protection for those not so covered who relied on their own privately purchased policies that were known to be pieces of shit, coverage wise. Yes, if you wanted to keep your piece of shit policy, you dumb ass, you could.
This whole discussion now should be not about what candidate and now twice elected President Obama said back in the day, but the ethics and social responsibility of this so called industry. Their ethics then and their ethics now, manipulating the system, squeezing through loopholes and laying blame on public policy for their outrageous practices and ethics free behavior.
Let’s have that debate, that discussion as we now seriously reconsider how we offer the citizens of America a public option/Medicare for all protection against the serial unethical culture of the private health insurance industry. Their immorality is uncurable. Let’s put them out of their misery.