Health Insurers Have It All But Want Still More

The health insurance industry has us all by the throat -- and yet they want more! They have a "10 Point Stranglehold Program" on America -- but they want 13. Here's what I mean:

Insurance companies have 10 things already:

1) No rate regulation;
2) No rate caps;
3) No competition;
4) No federal regulation;
5)Anti-trust exemption;
6) ERISA protection (podcast my Oct. 8, 2009 show for lots on ERISA);
7) Domination of state regulators;
8) Pre-existing conditions to cherry-pick only the customers they want;
9) Rescission to dump patients who cost them money;
10) Life time caps to limit their liability and exposure to paying claims.

But wait, there's more! They now demand three more things:

11) A federal mandate to buy coverage;
12) Whopping penalties to enforce the mandate and make our government their enforcement and collection agent;
13) Whopping subsidies of tax dollars (some call it money laundering) to pay for their overpriced, crappy product.

According to the rules of capitalism, a product that is bad and overpriced fails in the marketplace. So does the company selling the junk. But, in corporate, crony capitalism-land (America, 1980-present) the rules of the game don't apply. Yet, they call us Communists and Socialists. They are Fascists - plain and simple - the merger of big business and big government.

Only single payer will break their grip from around our throat.

Cross-posted from Justice for You.

 

 

Follow Norman Goldman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@normangoldman

Comments

[warsaw]

The insurance companies are also getting a bailout - under the radar. When my husband was laid off earlier this year, his cobra kicked in. Then we got a letter from the state letting us know that the federal government will help cover up to $500 of the premium. That was great. But then it dawned on us that it was the money given to the states from the federal stimulus that was going directly to the insurance companies pockets. What a deal! They were getting paid directly from the feds!

[BunnyX]

If you object so strongly to this arrangement, just cancel your cobra and it won't happen.

Thought not.

It's time to focus on the real problem. Costs are completely out of control, and that is not the insurance company's doing. Fix that problem and the insurance company problem will disappear also.

[Deschris]

The health insurance companies should be told in no uncertain terms,either they accept a strong public option to compete with them or the government will introduce stiff regulations,caps on rates and a whole host of other conditions for doing business.End of story.If they don't like it they can form their own banks and financial institutions and rip each other off.

[desktop]

Then why in the heck does Obama not demand public option? I will wait until I see the final bill, but from what I see coming, the American middle class is screwed. The only people to get relief are the ones who can't get insurance at all. For them, I am happy they will get help. For everyone else, it looks like the future is worse than ever, because Obama refused to lay down the gauntlet for public insurance. If a bill is signed without public option, I'm done caring and voting. It's obviously every man for themselves.

[Squeezer55]

As a Canadian listening to the unending stories of hardship imposed on Americans by the insurance companies, I have a nightmare that has me quite troubled. I awake to find myself living in the U.S. and having to deal with a huge insurance company that screws me around because my son is a diabetic and my wife is a cancer survivor. In my nightmare/dream , I go Oklahoma City on the insurance company's head office ( at night-no casualties) and I continue to do so on all insurance company buildings until I'm caught.

[OLM]

A single-payer system is obviously the best way for the U.S. to go, but I don't see you getting there anytime soon - it's just too cataclysmic a change to make in one fell swoop. But to the more pragmatic strategists amongst you, I would advocate a more incremental approach, one that might have a better chance of getting you where you want to be.

If Congress passed a law lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare by one year, each year on January 1st, you would eventually end up with a single-payer system that covered all Americans. Granted, some people would continue to fall between the cracks for a while, but given that you've lived with a system that values profits over people for so long now, I'm sure you could continue to look the other way for a while longer. The added advantage would be that health insurance companies would have ample time to adapt and reinvent themselves in light of new realities.

I think this approach has merit because the only way to turn around the Titanic is slowly, one degree at a time. So, come on U.S.A. - get your rear-in-gear and show the rest of the world that America really is as smart and resourceful as you keep telling the rest of the us that you are. At least get the ball rolling in the right direction.

[nwhank]

Perhaps our politicians would be willing to donate some of the millions they receive from the health sector (http://public-healthcare-issues.suite101.com/article.cfm/health_sector_donates_millions_to_us_congress) to the millions of people at risk due to the rising costs of health insurance (http://public-healthcare-issues.suite101.com/article.cfm/underinsured_in_america).

[ajwriter]

Think about one of the most enticing aspects of single payer: single payer is the only system anyone has proposed that does away with insurance profiteering. However, we could do away with insurance profiteering like the rest of the world without going single payer. Single payer is probably the best way for now, but wingnuts would sooner destroy the country.

I think Congress should automatically enroll everyone in Medicare and levy separate tax from people's income for it. Anyone who wants to opt out and get a private insurer, can. But benefits from employers should be taxed as income, no more subsidizing private insurance. People who transfer to Medicare after the first five years will presumably be doing so to get their sick care covered -- so they should face higher costs, just as elders who don't take Part B do.

Another option is to simply outlaw healthinsurance profiteering, so only the non-profit sector remains. The government could examine all the Blue Cross/Shield conversions to for-profit for irregularities and revert any that were done improperly immediately. BCBS did build their business with decades of no taxes and privileged treatment.

[nwhank]

Perhaps our politicians would be willing to donate some of the millions they receive from the health sector (http://public-healthcare-issues.suite101.com/article.cfm/health_sector_donates_millions_to_us_congress) to the millions at risk due to the rising cost of health insurance (http://public-healthcare-issues.suite101.com/article.cfm/underinsured_in_america).

[ajwriter]

One point you missed was that insurers have rigged the FEHBP so that the 8 million federal workers now actually have it worse than people under ERISA. (I think they got the rules changed when people started talking about using FEHBP to reform the system...)

In other advanced nations that offer universal care, with better outcomes, for less money, some have insurance companies (some, many insurance companies), and some have no insurance companies. The one commonality: no other advanced nation on earth but the US allows insurance profiteering in primary healthcare financing, we are the only one. Switzerland briefly experimented with allowing insurers to make a profit in healthcare, but ended it when all that did was raise costs.

The profit insurers take out of the system isn't the whole story -- the consequences of their efforts to make a profit ripple through the system. It's why we have $450 billion in administrative costs annually. It hurts the advancement of medicine as insurance companies manipulate medical guidelines and decisionmaking, and doctors spend millions of man hours on paperwork rather than helping patients. When such overwhelming resources go to AVOID giving people care, rather than giving everyone the best care possible, then we get good at NOT giving people care! If our efforts and resources went to giving everyone the best care, then we'd get good at that -- and eventually we'd save money at it, too.

[trackerone]

Great article. Thanks for telling it like it is.

[JBS]

"You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun."
-- Al Capone

[Wisconsin Dave]

Impossible for a capitalist government to pass laws, or enforce laws,
that would reduce the excessive profit in a capitalist medical system.

[Jim Jaffe - Huffpost Blogger]

thanks. calling the insurers fascists is an inspired strategy to get people talking and resolving their differences with the compromises inherent in the political process. I'm quite confident this will result in real progress soon.

[Wisconsin Dave]

A capitalist government is a competition based intelligence dictatorship,
and as such does not have "compromises" that compromise, inhibit
or reduce the unregulated freedom to compete for excessive wealth.

[TheobaldLocke]

Problem is that you are introducing the term"fascist" in a country that makes no distinction between nazism, fasism, socialism and communism (Obama for example is all four at the same time). I think a different term would be better...

That being said i think this article is one of the best I've read on the subject!

[jan4insight]

Here's your different term: Robber Barons

[IneptitudePrideB4Fall]

And what a sell-out to say, before the negotiating even began, that we would not look into how other countries have tackled their health care issues. We might learn something. We might discover the pros and cons of various solutions. No. We MUST keep the health insurance companies in charge of the whole problem. And give them a few more perks in the process.

Go figure.

[TheobaldLocke]

Especially the fact that every other developed country has abandoned (or never even approached) the idea of for-profit health care...

But yeah, changing the US system will probably lead to ruin...

[lapdogs]

Norm - But, but, but ... How do you expect them to "compete" and "stay in business" (snark)?

Isn't it suppose to be a one-way system where the client pays their premiums religiously and then gets denied coverage when they get sick?

It's gotta be in some "Rule Book" the Insurance Industry uses - somewhere!

Oh wait, Congress wrote that "Rule Book" for the insurance companies years and years ago. Might have had something to do with this thing they call "Campaign Contributions", that members of Congress receive!! Just a hunch; I could be wrong.