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The Health Insurance Industry Doesn't Deserve Our Trust
Farmers often depend on off farm jobs to provide health insurance, if
that wasn't an option they could generally afford an individual plan.
Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations in America, heavy
machinery, large animals, long hours in the sun, chemicals and that
always present independent streak that keeps us from seeing the doctor
when we should. Still, we need insurance.
Most jobs are cutting insurance benefits, if the jobs are still there.
Individual plans for farmers are expensive with high deductibles since
our work is dangerous, we probably have pre-existing conditions and we
are nearing an average age of 58 years.
The Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska notes that rural residents are
twice as likely to be uninsured as urban Americans while farmers and
ranchers are four times as likely to be “underinsured”, covered by
insurance with reduced benefits and a high deductibles.
Montana Senator Max Baucus says single payer health care “ is off the
table”. Who made him king? What are we, chopped liver, doesn't our
opinion count? A January CBS/New York Times poll showed 59% of
respondents favored a national health care plan. A February CNN poll
showed 72% favored a government controlled plan. Any issue with that
much across the board support should be “on the table”.
It seems especially surprising that Baucus, from Montana, a rural
state, one that would benefit most from a single payer plan, is opposed
to any discussion. However if one looks at campaign contributions from the health insurance industry to Baucus, we see why he supports the status quo.
The insurance companies, in hopes of killing single payer, say they are
willing to cover those with “pre-existing conditions” provided "everyone" buys their health insurance. The the insurance companies
dream, every American with an insurance policy and private insurers
collecting premiums on another 49 million people. Of course they can
still deny payment of claims, they're good at that.
But they say trust us, we will cut costs, as long as everyone buys a
policy from us; but, there will be no competition from a public option.
No competition? Workers and farmers are expected to compete in the
world market but insurance companies are afraid to compete against a
public option?
Trust us? Trust insurance companies to care about our health over their profits?
According to the New England Journal of Medicine,
insurance companies own billions of dollars of tobacco industry stock.
Clearly, their motive is profit, not the best interest of the American
public.
While health insurance companies downplay their tobacco investments as
being only a small percentage of their total investment portfolio, with
billions invested in tobacco, one wonders how much money do these guys
have, where did they get it and why won't they pay it to their policy
holders when they deserve it?
While New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo investigates
industry wide rate manipulation in the health insurance industry, they
say trust us. Trust an industry that employs an "army of claim deniers"
and administrative personnel whose numbers have grown 25 times faster
than the number of physicians in the US over the past 30 years?
They expect us to believe they care about the health of the 49 million
uninsured Americans or the 53,000 that die yearly due to denied claims?
A “public option” should be an option, just as public education,
transportation, and legal protection are available, but not required.
Some of my neighbors, like many Americans, lack confidence in the
governments ability to administer a public health insurance plan. But
they are beginning to trust private insurance companies even less. So
to legislators who say the public option is off the table, think again,
there are 49 million uninsured and 25 million underinsured in America, we may lack health insurance but we can still vote.
- Posted in
31 Comments so far
Show All"if that wasn't an option they could generally [not?] afford an individual plan."
'Indian givers'. Does anyone else remember that term? I think it means to be promised something and then get ripped off. And worse--raped, tortured and killed. Gee, were we warned about this now present (to the honest American worker, taught from birth, to blindly t-r-u-s-t and defend, the institutions, the bureaucracy) exploitation? This suddenly now present and increasingly ruthless oligarchy?
Indian givers.
We (as tools of our government) lied and we took from the Native Americans. Our culture. And now we (who trusted and defended, worked for, continue to work for, this government) are the new Native Americans. Again our culture, our form of government.
Happy there on your reservation, Jim?
nedlud
There is some very important factors the author left out of this article.
The 'health insurance industry' is only one of the 'players' in the dismal mess that has become the miserable excuse for 'health care in America'.
The main culprits here are the Doctors and other professionals who participate. Without them, the Insurance Industry would have 'no delivery personnel'----
Most of the Doctors in America are more concerned with their 'income' instead of the 'outcome' of their profession. They have taken their superior intelligence and education and made a mockery of both by their participation in such a sham.
As leaders in a society they have an 'extra repsonsibility'
that as a rule they "ALL" have failed to deliver---while at the same time most Doctors these days do not treat patients without a signed statement from the patient releasing the Doctor from liability----another case of ignoring their responsibility.
Good Luck America, you really need it.
If you read a recent article in the new yorker, a surgeon travels to McAllen Texas and finds out why it is the most expensive healthcare system per capita in the country. He then mentions my home state of Colorado and Grand Junction, which is the lowest per capita expense. (I forget the author's name)
The system allows the evildoers to play both sides of the game to fleece you of your money. There are all kinds of doctors in the country. I have no doubt that there are some of the kind that you speak off. Maybe more of them in McAllen.
The system has to be tackled first
Love
Zero
I agree it's not just BIG Vampire care. It's many of the Elite medical society ( our new nobility) and it's also BIG Pharma. These sectors are making a killing off of all of us.
flash news headline:
The Health Insurance Industry Doesn't Deserve Our Trust
wow
no shit
neither does the government, the corporate fawning media, business leaders, talking heads on tv
but apparently they don't need it either as they do pretty well whatever the fuck they want
this should be the headline:
The Health Insurance Industry Doesn't Need Our Trust
Nicely put, ma g.
The question returns to whether individuals have a voice in the new democracy of technological corporations. Our rights have been eroded by those of corporations who now are more human then we are.
Love
Zero
I could be wrong, but I understand that under the law a corporation is a "person."
Lingum you are correct. On May 10 1886 the supreme court decreed that corporations have most rights and duties of natural persons. They can sue, be sued, sell property, have protected free speech and are obliged to pay taxes. And as we all know they can even engage in at least one human physical act, they can screw the average person, and seem to usually do it with complete impunity.
In my opinion that judgement has had one of the greatest negative impacts on the average persons life of any issued by the court.
On a philosophical level, how the heck can a corporation have free speech rights. It cant utter a word on its own, it cant type a letter on its own. It can't even communicate in any way to a real person that can pass the message along. What a pin headed judgement.
NC-Tom, please. You are perpetrating a hoax with your disinformation. The Supreme Court made no such ruling. The court recorder inserted that into the headnotes (a synopsis of the ruling) and all subsequent rulings about corporate personhood rulings have been based on those headnotes. A fraud, never corrected, and a destruction of our democracy.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Here is a good description of the ruling. According to this it was a combination of the justices statement and how it was recorded. I would think if the supreme court did not agree with how the ruling was recorded they could have asked to have it changed. I think you're splitting legal hairs. (Are you a lawyer?)
In one of the stranger sagas of business and legal history, the court was gaveled to order on May 10, 1886 by Chief Justice Morrison Waite who announced,
"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids States to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations [the Southern Pacific Railroad]. We are all of the opinion that it does."
The court's reporter of decisions, J. C. Bancroft Davis, took this statement, rephrased it and inserted it into the record as a finding that,
"The defendant corporations [the Southern Pacific Railroad] are persons within the intent of the clause in Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person the equal protection of the laws."
With the Chief Justice's statement and the recorder's documentation, the railroads had what they wanted. The highest court of the land gave them all the protections guaranteed by the constitution to "natural persons."
Nice piece of History there NC Tom.
This is the kind of information that stays with me.
Thanks for putting it up.
Love
Zero
BeForKids: However it got there it is considered precedent. Even Robert Bork used it as an example of overturning precedent.
We need Jim Hightower's proposition for a constitutional amendment. If their freedom of speech was limited to truthful, commercial speech we would get corporate money out of politics. Then we could change the corporate income tax to a flat tax on gross revenues. Exempt the first $100million (giving a nice break to anything resembling a small business) and call it a day. Think of all the lobbyists these 2 changes would eliminate. Anyway, thats my fantasy. In the real world we can "hope" that the recent court challenge to corporate personhood that we read about on CD gets lucky.
There are a few flaws I see with blaming an 1886 ruling alone. First, corporations back then were not as abusive as they are today. Yes, they were abusive but there were ways to restrain them and most people back then wouldn't hesitate to make them pay up unlike today's ignorant masses. Today, even if we were to remove "personhood" from corporations much as I would like it to be, it wouldn't make a difference. In fact, it would be harder to force corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. What we need is enforcement of the definition of a corporation as a person. Currently, corporations pay lower taxes than the rest of us regardless of wealth and that's before we add in all those special exemptions and loopholes. If we took away the personhood status, the elites could in theory easily design corporations as some special "supernatural" entity or something like that. Another thing not talked about is that it is often the people who control the corporations, usually top management, that are responsible for giving the company a good or bad name. Time and again, I've come across good and small corporations that have been forced in ruins because of hostile takeover which results in the company going bad and either getting away with it by fluke or facing severe consequences. 1886 was a real long time ago and between that year and today, there were times when corporations were tamed and it can be done again. What needs to be done is enforcing the good policies and reforming the bad ones IMO. I think it's much more complicated than that mere ruling. I apologize for any misunderstanding.
JUST HOLD ON SEAGLASS & NativeSon: Medical providers: Doctors, their staffs, nurses and the many people who work at hospitals are hardly part of an "Elite Society" -- doctors in small and large groups work long hours, really care about patients and do quite well at that task. The only "elite" physicians are those receiving cash for specialized work (elective cosmetic surgery for example); All others MUST play the game with insurance companies and all those entities in between insurers and medical providers -- the freakin' "networks" -- re-pricing agencies that tell physician groups what the insurers will pay for each and every service or procedure. There is a multitude of middlemen between insurance companies and your doctor, who has no alternative but to accept what insurance will pay for any given procedure/service.
All of those middlemen charge for being "negotiators"; add that to the $400 billion insurance companies take for "administrative costs" (i.e. profit, fraud, inefficencies which equal 20% of all health care costs.
All of that is why health care costs what it does -- providers are the least of costs you and I experience.
My general physician group regularly "writes off" (discounts)charges 20% to 90% -- because that's all my insurance company/network will pay. I've wondered how my doctor keeps the lights on, given the net amount he receives for services provides -- and I see the dollar amounts my doctor receives.
Medicare overhead (administrative costs)? 2%-3%, yes that's correct. Read recent Commondreams editorials about health care, then follow links to recent testimony before congress, Physicians for Single Payer, etc. etc. See the side-by-side chart comparing single payer and Obama's "public option" -- which congress and the progressive democrat caucus supports -- your representative and senators are all corrupted by contributions from Big Pharma and insurance industry. THAT AND PROFIT ARE THE PROBLEM PEOPLE.
Spoken by an informed citizen.
Obviously you have been reading up on this convoluted system we call health care. I say return it to the doctors and see what happens. They are not the problem.
Insurance companies were never to be trusted before ever since the 1970s when Nixon provided the slippery slope to privatized health care. Why purchase insurance on anything anyway? It's nothing but fraud 100%. First they take all your money and pool it up. Then they promise so and so for whatever but when it's really needed they go "Ooops, sorry man, this doesn't cover it !" I wouldn't trust the government or the insurance companies. I love single payer but I have a suspicion that even if it were to pass, government would be like the insurance companies going "Oops, we ain't got the money and we don't cover ... !" In other words, we don't have a government that would allow single payer to flourish for the betterment of society.
The bueraucracy can not be allowed to behave like these private companies with armies of lawyers. The profit motive left behind, the average worker just becomes a paper pusher and is obliged to do his job. the same is true up the ranks of the system, as there is no big kajuna becoming a billionaire at the top at everyone else's expense.
You may be right that in America, there will be people willing to behave just as the private insurance companies do. I believe these will be monkey wrenches weeded out of the system. It is not the case in most other civilized nations where a government run health care system exists.
Love
Zero
" there will be people willing to behave just as the private insurance companies do."
I see this kind of amorality even amongst the poor conservatives but living in South Carolina, what's to expect? But now that you brought this up and I had just finished posting a response on another thread about amorality and its spread, I think that somewhere from both the corporations and pols, amorality and corruption has spread to even the poorest who nowadays blindly believe that they'll be as "rich" as their masters and I've seen it amongst all races, religions, and genders though it's usually most noticable amongst white Christian males. As far as bureaucracy is concerned, spot on.
It astounds me that Americans have so easily drank the tonic of government ineptitude. Then again, 30 years of Republican/conservative rule have, with constant propaganda, manufactured this attitude.
But, apparently, the American government is most competent at protecting Americans from terrorism. War is the government's only core competence.
What crap!
If there's no public health insurance in this bill then the Democrats are toast. 2010 congressional losses and one term for Obama.
I will not vote Democrat again.
You need not--should not--have voted Democrat in 2008.
yea, how can you trust and industry that pays its staff to find ways to discontinue your insurance if you have a large claim, ie discontinue your coverage just when you need it most
or pays their doctors to find ways to deny claims
or routinely denies claims and cause unnecessary delay so that a certain percentage will stop trying
for profit medicine does not work,
nor would for profit schools, private for profit military, for profit police departments for profit fire departments.....
a couple years back a corporation bought some hospitals in pennsylvania, some of the very old with large endowments from charitable contributions..... then they tried to strip away all the endowments (steal these charitable contributions) and then resell the hospitals...
yea lets trust these guys, they are so compassionate
You cannot reform anything until the medical monopoly is broken.
In can be broken by passing health freedom legislation, permitting physicians to treat patients as they deem appropriate. Physicians should lose their licenses only for ethical lapses and harm to patients. Not for using "unapproved methods" that cure people cheap[ly and quickly. If doctors weren't so intimidated, health care costs would plummet.
Educate yourself. Here are 2 ways:
For $49 a subscription to Nutrition & Healing newsletter will get you 12 issues and access to 9 years of archives. Research and references are online. Written by a physician with 35 years in family medicine practice who once had the FDA in his office with guns drawn to confiscate B vitamins and herbs he had ordered from Germany. www.wrightnewsletter.com
No cost: www.hsibaltimore.com Get daily e-alerts, search archives. Not as extensive info as the newsletter but ignore ads, concentrate on text and do your own investigating. However, if you investigate at "medical" sites like Mayo Clinic, you will get the party line.
Search: d'mannose, Bec5
Activism is the only way to change this country. All you bloggers take your opinions to the streets and march, assemble, and picket. Yell for health insurance and any thing that is most important. Venting on these blogs only serves to disappate your anger and frustration. Venting here does nothing for no one and only keeps you from taking real action. Remember the 60's and 70's, march, march, march for freedom again. March for healthcare and clean energy. We need half a million strong in the streets protesting and getting what we need. So get active before it is too late.
True but first we all need this forum to INFORM one another before we can protest and win. Protesting in DC doesn't solve everything either though it can help some. We have a right to vent on the blogs so that we don't show our anger in the wrong direction. No problem marching on the streets but today there's tougher technologies to face and hence we need to come up with other possible venues and this is why forums such as these exist to inform and even influence. The only real action in any case is voting. Other than that, the game is "fixed" until the next election.
I am proposing the following suggestion everywhere I can, in response to the possible removal of a public option:
No federal employee should receive taxpayer-subsidized healthcare. From janitors to the President to soldiers: If it's no good for us, it's no good for them.
You want to save money, you say? Fine: We will remove the healthcare benefits of every federal employee in all 50 states, including the military around the world. Let everybody deal with the for-profit insurance industry, like tens of millions of us taxpayers have to do.
You think that's not fair? You and I are funding these people. Believe me: It's fair.
Compare the situation in Iran now and the events here when the Supreme Court ruled that Bush the Second was our President. Americans did not get out in the streets. Look at our situation now. We stayed home and watched the boob tube or blogged our anger and Bush went on to pre emptive war and deleting whole sections of our Constitution. Those ongoing wars and the generous gifts to the financial industry have bankrupted our nation. Dollar is worth about a quarter now and falling fast as we hurry to cash our unemployment check.
Marcie is very wise to tell us to march, march, march for freedom. We need to get off our asses and get out on the street making noise. Want Single Payer? "So get active before it is too late."
It would appear as if the "Health" Insurance industry has screwed over so many people that their propaganda is losing it's prior effectiveness. Whether or not a mixed public / private system (like Switzerland) or Single Payer comes into being: I offer the following bit of advice, if it is possible for you, acquire a second passport from a country that has single payer!
After pure ideological delusion, the chief argument against a single-payer system - of whatever design - is claimed to be the cost. Here's a suggestion to provide the money: spend some of the Trillions of dollars spent each year on advertising and propaganda on healthcare instead.
In the 1990s one out of every six dollars in the economy was spent on advertising or public relations. I can only assume that even more is being spent today (new outlets are being created all the time). You can see the results every day in the 'public' media - TV, radio, newspapers, periodicals, web pages, on buses, taxis, billboards, and in the mail. As an aside, cutting back on junk mail may save the Postal Service - thereby killing two birds at once. (Note: No birds were actually killed in the writing of this post.)
Isn't it about time all this useless and/or non-productive commercial propaganda was at least curtailed and the resources spent on something far more useful? It might even clear some of America's minds to ponder far more important issues than what brand of toothpaste they use, what car they drive, and what carefully calibrated clone they vote for.
If you can't trust them, don't pay them.
We had an election last November. Notice anything different?
If voting were the solution then we would have had a single payer public healthcare system decades ago.
Healthcare is not the only area in which congress and the president are choosing to ignore public opinion.
Americans have been overwhelmingly against the war in Iraq for years and I don't know anyone except Obama and Generals in the Pentagon that think Afghanistan is a good idea.
Obama's refusal to prosecute the crimes of the last administration is a crime in itself and even with CNN filling people's ears with nonsense a majority believe there should be investigations and prosecutions.
Millions of votes are not counted or counted incorrectly. Voter have no power even if they win.
This president and this congress don't care what we think.
They will continue to ignore us, to operate out of compliance with the rule of law and the Constitution us until we figure out a way to make them hear us and fear us.