Insurance Companies Remind Public Why We Hate Them

Just as the Senate Finance Committee is about to pass a health care bill without a public option, the insurance lobby's last-minute hissy fit exposed the weakness of its argument against a public option.

America's Health Insurance Plans, the main insurance lobby organization, released a report projecting a rise in annual premiums for the average family from $12,300 today to $25,900 in 2019 if the Senate Finance Committee version becomes law.

That version has an individual mandate to buy private health insurance -- albeit with lighter penalties than initially proposed, the report's complaint -- but it does not have a public option that competes with private health insurance.

The insurance industry is acting as if these price spikes would just magically happen after the bill becomes law, not acknowledging that it sets the costs of premiums.

Notably, one word is missing from the report: profit.

The whole point of a public option is its ability to set a lower cost of premiums, and force private insurers to reduce costs in areas such as fat executive salaries in order to remain competitive.

Yet the insurance lobby decided to remind the public, at a critical point in the health care debate, that it's been gouging them for years, and plans to gouge them some more.

Premiums have already risen 131% over the last ten years, and now they are promising another 111% increase.

The methodology arguing private insurers will have no choice but to raise prices is flawed. But it is a stark reminder that private insurers will be able to do what they want, and raise prices on the flimsiest of predicates.

If there is no strong public option, in the end, private insurers will be able to do what they want, and you won't have a choice.

So thank you insurance lobby, for letting the public know what the status quo will be like without giving people the choice of a public plan.

Originally posted at OurFuture.org

 

 

Follow Bill Scher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billscher

Comments

[halifax69]

We are cursed with an anti-intellectual, non-thinking populace who are swayed by the simplest of lies. It hurts too much to think, I guess.

[Firbolg]

Insurance companies are not the problem with healthcare, politicians are.
Insurance companies are businesses and have a legitimate fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits and net worth.
Insurance is for risk. The need for healthcare is a certainty so insurance is not the way to go.
People requiring healthcare should not be treated as a profit centre. Treatment should be based on need and not means.
Politicians, despite appearances, are not dumb and know all this. However to get their hands on the funds they need for reelection they have allowed healthcare, banking, the environment – basically almost everything they are responsible for to crash and burn.
That we as an electorate are by and large oblivious to this is the real issue. There are people almost dancing in the streets now that the senate healthcare bill has been passed. What are they thinking? Or are they thinking?

[mld678]

This is an emotional issue for many Americans. This so-called “public option” in Government run health care presents serious challenges for us. As Consumers we should be able to compare the cost and quality of health care services. How much is a specific surgery at one hospital, as compared with another? http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/media/

[Firbolg]

Good point.
But you would have to factor in the cost of the ambulance driving you around from hospital to hospital against any savings from competitive quotes.
And there is always the chance that your heart attack could finish you off before you make a deal.

[Javani]

Huhh? The public option was always a fake gimmick, and the insurance cos are complaining now NOT about the public option. The PO is dead, dead. So what are they complaining about now? The bill as it changes is CUTTING BACK on universal insurance goals. That means less money for insurance cos., less money for government subsidization of middle class to buy private insurance. I believe the reasoning is that the plan to take $500 billion out of Medicare is off the table."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health-uninsured13-2009oct13,0,7350482.story

"Reporting from Washington - As a key Senate committee prepares today to pass its plan to overhaul the nation's healthcare system, senior Democrats are acknowledging that it may be impossible to provide coverage to all Americans -- a central goal of President Obama and his congressional allies.

That is fueling growing alarm among hospitals and insurance companies, which have made universal coverage a condition of their support."

They will take something. The "condition" is their fiduciary duty to shareholders to try to milk the government and public of everything they can.