Selling Out To The Private Insurance Companies

More than a year ago the Congress passed a health care reform law and the president signed it. The president and Democrats said it would lower the cost of health insurance and cover nearly all Americans. The Republicans said it was a socialist program where the government would take over health care for all Americans. Neither side was telling the truth.

There was nothing about the reform that had anything even remotely socialist. All health insurance in this country was left in the hands of private insurance companies (except for Medicare and some Medicaid). At the time I was shocked that the Republicans were so opposed to the program, because it was nearly identical to what they themselves had proposed just a few years earlier (and Romney got passed in Massachusetts). They were getting everything they had wanted -- more business for private insurance companies and no public option for insurance coverage.

It was the progressives who should have been unhappy with the health care reform, and many of us were. The lack of at least a public option and complete dependence on private insurance companies had many progressives, including myself, believing that the law was more of a huge financial bonus for the insurance companies than it was a real reform of the health care system.

Now it looks like there is proof that we were right all along. A new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shows that the new healthcare law is going to provide a huge financial boon for private insurance companies -- at least $60 billion by 2014, and at least $200 billion by 2019. That's a lot of extra money for the insurance companies. It smacks a lot more of greedy capitalism than any kind of socialism.

Frankly, to me it looks like the giant corporate interests just put another one over on the United States government -- and neither political party was smart enough to see what was happening.  The Republicans were too busy opposing anything proposed by the president, and the Democrats were just glad to get something, anything, passed in Congress.

Meanwhile insurance premiums keep rising each year as well as medical costs, less people are covered with insurance through their jobs each year, and insurance policies cover less of medical costs each year. The insurance companies are getting richer while our health care system is still broken.

It may take a few years, but the American people will soon figure out just what a ridiculous boondoggle the new law really is.