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.