More than 70 percent of the American public agrees that a public option for health care is a good idea. That fact is terrifying to insurance companies that have hustled billions of dollars out of a dysfunctional health care system for decades. The insurance industry is so worried that they now have phonied up protest groups showing up at town hall meetings to disguise the fact that 70 percent of Americans want a choice between private insurance and a government run plan.
One of the phony consumer groups that has created chaos at town hall meetings is a group called Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR). The founder of CPR, Rick Scott, was CEO of Columbia HCA during a time when Columbia was punished with a 1.7 billion dollar U.S. Government penalty for fraud. The caliber of fraud that Mr. Scott allowed to occur at his company not only included ripping off patients, doctors, and the government, it also included kickbacks to health care providers.
Today, Mr. Scott is back with his fraud games by trying to convince the brain dead media that the loonies showing up to shout and scream at town hall meetings represent America's majority. Media has become incapable of asking basic questions like: Who's money is paying for these protesters for hire?
Here is what Mr. Scott's "protesters" probably don't know: In the last 10 years, the health care insurance industry has increased their profits by 450 percent. In fact, if Rick Scott's plan succeeds in ending reform, profits will get even bigger for the cash fat insurance industry.
Projections show that by 2016, premiums for employer health care plans will increase by 85 percent. The net effect of that is that employers will simply drop employee health care plans. If employers do maintain their plans, employees with histories of physical illness will be the first to lose their jobs because their bad health will increase premium costs for their employer. Employers in a veiled kind of way will be asking new questions when they interview job applicants. The new questions will center around past health problems, smoking history, weight management history, and even family health history. The new criteria for hiring will not only be skill and qualifications. The health history of employees and their family will be equally as important. If Rick Scott's hired protesters really want something to shout about, they should be screaming at the top of their voice that America's insurance companies should not have a special exemption that excludes that industry from anti-trust laws. It is the only industry besides professional baseball that has a special exemption excluding them from price fixing oversight by government. With that special exemption, they use their billions in profits to pay fraudulent activists groups to create the illusion that the opinion of 70 percent of Americans is not really relevant.
Rick Scott and his pals are scared. They can visualize what a government run public option might do to them. Their ability to refuse coverage for preexisting illness would be jeopardized. Their routine of denying treatment without explanation would become more difficult. Their surly attitude about premium increases would be tamed, and companies like Scott's Columbia HCA would have a more difficult time pulling off 1.7 billion dollar health care frauds.
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Journalists in our MSM have become worthless. The only bright spots are Rachel Maddow and John Stewart who both show up with facts, statistics, and actually having read relevant material to the issue at hand. In other words, they act like real journalists.
I saw a report about Rick Scott on MSNBC on Rachel Maddow, so some of the Media are doing their job.
But if you expect FOX, CNN or ABC to do real reporting ...
Let’s try the 70%.
The question asked in this poll allows those answering to think they can keep their own insurance for themselves; the public option would be for other people. This is a pitiful statistic. It is more condemning that 70% thought they could keep their own insurance that means that only 30% want government insurance!
The 450% is just plain bogus. Profits in the health care industry went up just over 7% in a recent 5 years.
Next we have “projections show” and increase of “85%” in healthcare premiums. May I use the same experts to predict the stock market?? I think not. So why would I believe the 85 number? Pfft.
That means the evil “loonies showing up at town meetings” are probably just normal people inflated like the 450% number.
You decide.
What poll? The post says 70% think a PUBLIC OPTION is a good idea.
A new poll published by AARP shows 79% in favor of a public plan with only 18% opposing.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from June (the last time it asked about a public option) shows 76% of Americans support a public plan.
Family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance increased 119 percent between 1999 and 2008, and could increase another 94 percent to an average $23,842 per family by 2020, according to a Commonwealth Fund report.
Health care costs are also going to outpace GDP growth over the same period according to CBO.
Anyway you want to slice the numbers Oldsop, the current system is broken for everyone except industry and big Pharm. Why Americans will continue to support the top .001% of our population and their grab for as much $ as they can is beyond me. People like Rick Scott and Stephen Hemsley are not good ole hard working Americans living the American dream. Brilliant? Sure. Hard working? No doubt. But they are making more money than they could burn on the backs of the poorest and those with the least resources. I don't understand how these hucksters convince average Americans to identify with them. This is not capitalism, its corporatocracy.
My numbers for health profit are not a poll.
The poor little insurance industry is BANKRUPTING America.
their lack of investigation and attention to the health care issue. The problem
with their reflection will, of course, be because it will come as an after-thought.
They need to do it now.
One of the first, and simplest things, they might do is to point out to the
uninformed and the ill-informed that the HealthCare providers do not
provide health care....they are insurers only. Only the doctors, nurses,
medical specialists, and hospital staff, provide health care.
The insurers have an inflated picture of themselves and of that which
they do, because it is connected with our health care system, In reality,
they are no different then those who we seek to insurer our vehicles,
our boats and our homes. But this connection to us where our health and
lives are concerned lets us and them think they are more than they
really are.
If the companies who insure our vehicles had this same attitude towards
us we'd be storming their offices while the press villified them in the news.
First, when have there ever been so many 'town hall' constituent meetings? The Congress is so far in the pocket of the profit making industries in this issue, they want to crazies to come out to these fake meetings and make the noise to give them cover so they don't have to pass legislation that will hurt their benefactors. They seem to me to be working in a coordinated manner with people like Mr. Scott to convince people that the majority of Americans don't want a 'public option' or single payer.
Second, the above comment starting with 'projections' sounds a lot like 'plans' to me. The plan seems to be to jack up employer based premiums in order to force employers to drop the benefits and to corral people into the really profitable high-deductible, low-benefits, 'consumer-driven' insurance plans.
Every job decision I made was based one keeping employer based health care. I had cancer in my late twenties and feared at what might happen if I did not have some kind of insurance. At the time I was diagnosed, I was working full time and going to graduate school and did have health insurance provided by a large carrier. After being treated, the remaining bills amounted to over half a years salary, one year of full time grad school tuition. The only way I could of continue my education was with the help of a government program that gave me financial assistance with these remaining medical expenses. That program ended when Reagan took office. I worked hard, but I did not get where I am today without the help of big bad government.
How much is our current system costing the U.S. in jobs. individual advancement, personal debt. and medical cost from not having regular check ups? This whole debate is crazy.
Here is another one. I had a close friend who had cancer, his insurance company refusing at first to give care, being forced to by the courts and then bankrupting the parents with deductibles. All the feet dragging did not help his chances. He died at the ripe old age of 22. The father later lost his business, committed suicide and the mother had a nervous breakdown.
Old Ronnie Reagan loved telling stories too.
On the other hand, it appears that the author engages in hyperbole as well when he says:
""Employers in a veiled kind of way will be asking new questions when they interview job applicants. The new questions will center around past health problems, smoking history, weight management history, and even family health history. The new criteria for hiring will not only be skill and qualifications."
As far as I know, it is illegal for potential employers to ask personal questions such as these. This is pure conjecture on his part and it undermines the validity of his arguement.
One of the reasons is that employers don't want to pay the higher cost of health care for people in their 50s. Many times they are rejected instantly based on the dates in their resume.
Pardon me, Spud777--NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC are all owned by GENERAL ELECTRIC, a perennial war profiteer and a charter member of the military indutrial complex, which naturally means that they too also tow the republican talking points and never point out hypocrisy about who is funding these creeps. Don't get swayed so easily about what the GE-owned media outlets are saying, because GE recently won a HUGE Iraq rebuilding contract.