BREAKING: Insurance Companies Threaten America
Posted on October 12th, 2009 by Jason Rosenbaum in Profits Before People
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Today, the insurance companies, speaking through their front group AHIP, are threatening America:
After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.
Their report and its conclusions are completely false, as Ezra Klein and Scarecrow explain, so they're not working with facts here. Rather, they are threatening to raise their rates if health reform hurts their profits.
The insurance industry's complaints come down to a proxy battle - they're attacking the weakened individual mandate provisions and the excise tax in the Senate Finance bill (the one that's a bailout for the very same insurance industry) as a way of attacking health reform in general, as well as an attempt to move the conversation away from the other bills in Congress, bills that do make health care affordable and do have a public health insurance option.
Instead, this report highlights how important it is to tightly regulate this criminal industry and make sure we all have a choice of a public health insurance option, so we're not left at the mercy of big insurance any longer.
The industry appears to want it both ways: they want to force everyone to buy their insurance, while cherry-picking the healthiest members of the uninsured for themselves, and sacrificing nothing in profits – in fact increasing them.
Today, insurance companies said that if they don't get what they want - force people to buy their overpriced insurance or pay a high fine - they will raise rates for all of us. It's a bare threat, especially in a country where over half of bankruptcies are caused by their bad practices.
Insurance companies are threatening us with more bankruptcy, attacking our livelihood and our economy, so they can continue with their criminal ways. We need freedom from the insurance industry's monopoly, and the only way we'll get it is with health reform that makes insurance affordable for people, and a public health insurance option to give us the choice to say no to big insurance.
Providing Medicare for everyone in the United States is the Only Legal, moral and constitutional outcome of Health Care Reform. I am not a lawyer, but I am betting it is unconstitutional to force one group of people, namely the blue collar and white collar working class, to work to give another group of people LIFE saving benefits like medical coverage that are denied to them. This is called being an indentured servant and that is not legal. Not only are these benefits flat out denied to us common working people, but we cannot afford to buy them either.
We must work to provide this LIFE savings benefit to everyone over 65 and anyone considered poor (but unless you earn more than $200,000 / year you are too poor to afford health insurance on your own). We have a friend who had a melanoma - 98% cure rate - but when he applied for health insurance coverage at BCBS of NC, which is not for profit, the only plan they would offer him would have cost him $15,000 / year to buy with a $10,000 deductable! Like I said no one is rich enough to afford that unless you make at least 200,000 / year!
The absolute minimum that can be allowed to happen is that we get the public option run by the Government. Private health insurance companies, even those run not for profit, have proven their track record, and they have chosen money over people’s health and even their lives.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Close down the insurance companies permanently and let our taxes pay our medical bills. It is idiotic to even think we need the insurance middleman. Insurance companies serve no purpose whatsoever in the delivery of medical care.
Insurance companies base their existence on statistics and risk, and they are nothing more than glorified gambling hustlers. And everyone knows, the house always wins. Put them out of "business".
Why on earth is everyone so shocked by this report? Of COURSE they're going to raise rates. There's nothing in the Baucus bill that would discourage that. In fact, it gives them plenty of excuses (not that they need excuses - raising rates is what they do best).
Does anyone honestly think that slapping a big tax on "Cadillac" plans will make costs go down? Does anyone buy the argument that providing subsidies, paid for by you and me, will lower costs?
Come on. Scrap the whole thing and start over with single payer. Get the greedy insurance companies out of the picture. Provide health care, not health insurance. I'm dreaming, I know.
The “individual mandate” is one of the most insidious aspects of the plans being considered. At its worst, this would be a system that forces people to buy unaffordable insurance from for-profit companies offering bare bones policies. I am personally only 10 months away from having Medicare, and I am totally looking forward to having health care that does not depend on having a job or on being able to qualify (fat chance, at my age!) for private insurance. Over the years of mainly being self-employed or working on contract, I have struggled to keep insurance, and, at times, I have had insurance so bare bones that it left me with huge bills, even when I was paying big monthly premiums. I came to the conclusion that some health insurance products were not worth what I would pay for them. Now this “individual mandate” would FORCE people to buy these products. If that happens, I hope someone will challenge it in court. How can it even be legal to force people to buy something from a private, for-profit company? Especially soemthing they clearly cannot afford and that is not worth the money.
The insurance industry doesn’t like it that the Baucus plan reduced the fines for not having insurance. But forcing people to buy health insurance as a means of access to health care is totally wrong! It puts the force of government behind an industry that has only profit as its goal, and sacrifices people’s health in doing so. The first step toward a solution to our health care problems is to eliminate private health insurance and automatically enroll all Americans in a government-funded plan. If only Congress had the guts to do it!
Our government needs to protect us from extortion for profit not facilitate it. Private insurance is not the solution, it's the problem and I also object to being forced to purchase from it. They need to provide a public option and let all people have access to Medicare with a buy-in plan. Why should we support and subsidize the insurance profiteers? When 44,000 Americans die because they lack health insurance it's as if big insurance has been waging a war on the medically needy with preexisting condition and other denials. This can only have a government solution as the rest of the respectable countries of the world know. Our elected representatives should be ashamed of themselves to have our inhumane system exposed to the entire world.
I was laid off 8 years ago. I was worried about insurance going up. I had heard about COBRA and was hopeful that it would help with the price. It did nothing. I'm not sure what the point to COBRA is other than being some sort of pre-existing condition protection. Any way, I found out that the same Hartford insurance that I was paying about $200.00 a month for at work was now going to cost me $750.00 a month. I had no job to pay for it on top of that. I ended up with a much lessor policy from Anthem BC/BS and still had to pay $395.00 a month. I ended up fighting with them on more than one claim over the same things.
We need Single Payer or Universal but everyone seems to want to drag out the inevitable and make it hurt even longer. The Public Option is the only way out of this mess. There should be no question. It's obvious. That's the easy part. Now it's up to the government to make it work financially. That's the hard part. Just find out who is ripping off Joe Average citizen. Is it the manufacturers of items that cost them a quarter to make while they charge the customer two dollars? There should be a department that does nothing but investigate fraud and price gauging.
But allas, where is the incentive? I am amazed that there is not more Public outrage just from the fact that our Congressmen and Senators seem to have been bought by the Industry. They are trying to pretent to controll things and are putting on one heck of a show. Anyone can observe. The conflict of intrest could not be any more blatent. If I gave you a million bucks, would you pay attention and feel a little obligated. The Insurance companies are killing the Public Option through our elected officials. Their plan is working perfectly. As long they are bedfellows, we citizens are screwed.
I am disappointed in my government presently but hopeful that someone will have the courage to step forward and speak the truth to their colleagues and to straighten this mess out for the individual citizens of the USA and not for big businesses putting money in the pockets of power.
We need Single Payer or Universal but everyone seems to want to drag out the inevitable and make it hurt even longer. The Public Option is the only way out of this mess. There should be no question. It's obvious. That's the easy part. Now it's up to the government to make it work financially. That's the hard part. Just find out who is ripping off Joe Average citizen. Is it the manufacturers of items that cost them a quarter to make while they charge the customer two dollars? There should be a department that does nothing but investigate fraud and price gauging.
But allas, where is the incentive? I am amazed that there is not more Public outrage just from the fact that our Congressmen and Senators seem to have been bought by the Industry. They are trying to pretent to controll things and are putting on one heck of a show. Anyone can observe. The conflict of intrest could not be any more blatent. If I gave you a million bucks, would you pay attention and feel a little obligated. The Insurance companies are killing the Public Option through our elected officials. Their plan is working perfectly. As long they are bedfellows, we citizens are screwed.
I am disappointed in my government presently but hopeful that someone will have the courage to step forward and speak the truth to their colleagues and to straighten this mess out for the individual citizens of the USA and not for big businesses putting money in the pockets of power.
After hearing all the options, I strongly feel we will never control costs without some kind of public option in our Health Care Reform. It will never truly be reform if a Non Profit Option is not included. It is a fact that Insurance costs have spiraled beyond affordability and they blame it on health care costs. Those costs must be addressed too, with more efficiency, and less emergency rooms used as a primary care giver. A public option ,along with everyone mandated to be insured would be a more effective step toward reform.