Most Say Insurance Companies Have Too Much Influence Over Health Care

 

The charts above are from a survey done by the Pew Research Center -- between April 28th and May 4th of a nationwide sample of 5,085 adults, with a 1.6 point margin of error.

Insurers: The Latest Version Of Trumpcare Is "Unworkable"

Doctors and hospitals have expressed their opposition to the Senate's latest version of Trumpcare. Now insurers are joining in that opposition. The CEO's of America's Health Insurance Plans and Blue Cross Blue Shield have sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Schumer. Note they say the Senate plan is unworkable, would undermine protections for those with pre-existing conditions, would raise the cost of insurance premiums, and would lead to widespread terminations of insurance coverage. That's a pretty broad condemnation of the Senate plan.

Here is the letter from the insurers:

Bill Clinton Is Wrong

(The caricature of Bill Clinton to the left is by the inimitable DonkeyHotey.)

The Republicans have been making a big deal out of insurance companies canceling some insurance policies that don't meet the basic standards of the health care reform in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). They say the president lied when he said people could keep their current policies if they liked them.

That's not true. These few policies were nothing more than a scam perpetrated on consumers by the insurance companies -- and did not offer adequate insurance coverage for those consumers. The insurance companies could have brought the policies up to meet the new standards, but they chose not to. They decided to just cancel them (and now the Republicans are trying to blame the president for the actions of these insurance companies).

And sadly, former president Bill Clinton has fallen into the Republicans trap -- and seems to be accepting their lies as having some validity. Clinton says:

"I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got."

He is wrong. No one should be allowed to keep those inadequate insurance policies -- most of which are closer to a scam than a real policy to cover medical costs. What is going to happen when someone with one of those policies contracts a serious (and therefore expensive) illness? Many of them are going to have to declare bankruptcy and ruin their credit. The new standards imposed by Obamacare actually protects these people -- by requiring coverage of more medical expenses, and by capping the amount any consumer would have to pay out-of-pocket for medical expenses.

And it also protects the rest of us. How? Well, someone has to pay those medical bills that the consumers with inadequate policies incur. The hospitals can't afford to absorb those costs, and you can bet the insurance companies won't pay a penny more than they are required to pay under the terms of the policy. It's hard enough to get them to pay for the things a policy does cover.

That leaves the rest of us ordinary Americans to pay those costs. If those people with bad policies got their care in a public hospital, then we will pay through higher taxes. If they got their unpaid care in a private hospital, then the hospital will raise its prices and insurance companies will have to pay those higher prices (which means everyone will pay a higher premium).

Obamacare's basic insurance standards doesn't just protect the people who currently have inadequate insurance -- it protects all of us by insuring that we won't have to absorb those costs. Bill Clinton is just mistaken. These scam insurance policies must not be allowed to continue -- even if some foolish people still want them.

I like Bill Clinton -- but he is wrong on this issue.

Insurance Carriers Say Guns Increase Risk

One of the primary arguments used by the right-wing to deny that gun laws need to be strengthened is the idea that having more guns in the hands of more people will increase the safety of everyone. The idea is that someone carrying a gun can prevent a criminal or madman from killing innocent people.

This flies in the face of reality. The truth is that in many mass shootings there have been people with guns, and that prevented nothing. A good example is the shooting a while back in Phoenix (that killed several people and seriously wounded Rep. Gabby Giffords). Several people in the crowd had guns, but the shooter was stopped by unarmed civilians acting quickly -- and not by anyone in the crowd with a gun. The same is true of most other shootings.

It also denies the findings of statistics, which clearly show that the rate of gun deaths goes up with the rate of gun ownership in a society. The United States, which has the highest rate of gun ownership (and easy availability), also has the highest death rate due to guns. While the idea of a heroic armed citizen defending people may sound good, the truth is that it just doesn't work that way in the real world (where it is far more likely that armed citizen will shoot an innocent person, probably even a family member, than shoot some criminal/madman). And those who deal daily with reality know that.

In Kansas, a state controlled by right-wing Republicans, the legislature recently followed the logic that more guns means more safety. They passed a law that would allow school employees (teachers, custodians, etc.) to carry guns in the state's schools. But while the legislature believed this would make schools safer, those who insure the school districts believed just the opposite. EMC Insurance, which insures nearly 90% of the state's schools, said they would refuse to renew insurance coverage for any school that allowed the carrying on guns on school property.

The insurance company said their decision did not involve politics. They simply believed it would substantially increase the risk of someone getting shot on school property (and therefore them having to pay out a huge sum for that shooting). In short, the insurance companies risk assessors are convinced that more guns means more risk -- not more safety.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone who thinks clearly. I believe even the right-wingers who oppose gun laws know this. They just refuse to publicly admit it, because the "safety" argument has been effective for them in opposing stricter gun laws -- and they don't want to give it up.

There is a way for the safety of innocent people to be enhanced, and that is to force all gun buyers to undergo a background check (even in private sales, gun show sales, and internet sales). This is supported by most Americans (even most gun owners), and it should be done without delay.

And schools should remain gun-free.

Democrats Improved Health Care, But They Didn't Fix It

I am not going to tell you that the health care reform passed by the Democrats (and commonly called "Obamacare") did not improve health care in this country, because that would be a lie. It accomplished some things that badly needed to be done.

Among other things, it increased the number of people who will be covered with at least some health insurance (after it fully comes into effect), it prevents the insurance companies from charging more or denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, it prevents an insurance company from dropping coverage when a person contract a serious and expensive illness (or putting a cap on the benefits that will be paid), it increased the age of students who can be kept on their parent's insurance, and it created government grants to help people who need them to buy insurance. All of those things needed to be done.

But the health care reform did not fix our system, or even truly reform it very much. Among the biggest failings of the healthcare reform was keeping healthcare decisions in the hands of the insurance companies (instead of doctors), a failure to put enough emphasis on prevention of illness, a failure to cover all U.S. citizens, and a failure to control the costs of healthcare. Simply moving to a single-payer government system of health insurance (such as Medicare for all citizens of all ages) would have solved all of these problems, but the politicians didn't have the political will to do that.

Conservatives will tell you that the United States has the best health care system in the world. That is simply not true. It is the best for rich people, but not necessarily so for anyone else. The truth is that some states have better health care than others, and even within each states, the healthcare varies widely in accessibility, availability, and quality.

What we do have is the most expensive health care system in the developed world. Health care in the United States costs about $8,000 per person. The second and third most expensive health care nations are Norway and Switzerland, who both spend slightly more than $5,000 per person. Everyone else spends even less than that per person for health care. And the reason they can spend less (and cover all their citizens with decent health care) is because they all have varying forms of single-payer health care systems.

And what do we get for spending so much more per person for health care? Citizens without any insurance coverage, less average visits to doctors and hospitals, shorter hospital stays (sometimes too short), higher death rates overall (including more deaths from asthma and diabetes), and a higher infant mortality rate.

Obamacare did fix a few problems with our health care system, but it didn't go nearly far enough. We can only hope that someday our politicians will follow the lead of other developed nations, and truly fix our system by initiating a single-payer system. It's the only thing that will work for everyone.

Insurance Companies Know "Global Climate Change" Is Real

Corporations, and their lackeys in Congress (the Republicans). have been denying the reality of global climate change (commonly called global warming) since it was first revealed by scientists. Although over 95% of credible scientists are convinced that the earth is getting warmer and much of it (if not all of it) has been caused by the actions of humans, the Republicans (spurred on by corporate interests) are still trying to say it has not been proven or that it is just "junk science".

Of course the Republican and corporate position is ludicrous. But it is easy to understand why they are doing what they are doing. It's because much of the global climate change has been caused by the corporations themselves -- and no solution is possible that doesn't require the polluting corporations to clean up their act. And they don't want to have to pay for cleaning up their own pollution.

But there is emerging a group of corporations that do believe in global climate change -- the insurance companies. They have finally been brought to the truth about global climate change because they are now having to pay for the destruction that it brings. They have started to realize that the earth's warming has caused much more severe weather, and resulted in more damage meaning more insurance payouts must be made. Recently, the Reinsurance Association of America, Swiss Re, Willis Re, and Ceresheld a press conference with Senators Sanders I-Vermont) and Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island). Here is some of what they had to say.

Franklin Nutter, Reinsurance Association of America president:

From our industry’s perspective, the footprints of climate change are around us and the trend of increasing damage to property and threat to lives is clear. We need a national policy related to climate and weather.

Mark Way, speaking for Swiss Re's American division:

As a member of the global insurance industry, we have witnessed the increased impact of weather-related events on our industry and around the world. A warming climate will only add to this trend of increasing losses, which is why action is needed now.

Pete Thomas, chief risk officer at Willis Re:

Extreme weather is a threat today and a greater threat tomorrow. I’m pleased to see the federal government grappling with this issue. The continuing work of Sens. Sanders and Whitehouse is an important start for this necessary dialogue.

Cynthia McHale, insurance program director at Ceres:

Our climate is changing, human activity is helping to drive the change, and the costs of these extreme weather events are going to keep ballooning unless we break through our political paralysis, and bring down emissions that are warming our planet. If we continue on this path, extreme weather is certain to cause more homes and businesses to be uninsurable in the private insurance market, leaving the costs to taxpayers or individuals.

Insurance Company Says NO To Saving Money

I got a rather shocking letter in the mail yesterday. It seems that the insurance company covering my drug prescriptions doesn't want me to save them any money.

I take the drug Lipitor (10 mg) under orders from my doctor. The drug is to keep my cholesterol at a reasonable level, and for many months now it has worked very well. Although Lipitor is a very expensive drug, my insurance company covers it and I only have to make a very small co-pay -- about $6.50 a month, which is more than reasonable.

But last month the patent ran out on Lipitor, and now there is at least one generic on the market (and more on the way as soon as they get FDA approval). My personal view is that no one should pay more for any product than they have to pay, not even an insurance company. So I asked my doctor to change my prescription to the generic form of the drug. It would make very little difference in what I pay for the drug, but I figured it would save the insurance company some money (and if enough people did that maybe it would encourage them to keep from raising their premiums).

Well, I guess I was wrong. The company did not appreciate my efforts at saving them some money. Their rather nasty letter said they would no longer pay for the generic (and only paid for the first prescription because Medicare rules required them to do so). They suggested I change my prescription to a drug included in their official formulary. So, since the more expensive Lipitor is in their formulary, I will be returning to it when I get my next refill. In short, the insurance company is ordering me to get the more expensive version of the drug -- even though they are the ones paying for it.

Now I don't have a problem with going back to Lipitor instead of using the generic, but the whole thing does strike me as rather stupid. When insurance companies (and I suspect they are all pretty much the same) refuse to let their customers save them a few dollars, is it any wonder that premiums are going up so much and so often?

A Broken And Bloated Healthcare System

"According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the $6,102 spent per person on healthcare in the United States in 2004 was nearly twice the amount than in most other industrialized democracies and well beyond the average $2,660 of the organization's 30 member nations. At the same time, the average life expectancy in the United States was shorter (77.5 years) and the infant mortality rate higher (6.9 deaths per 1,000 births) than elsewhere in the developed world."

"Employers are increasingly opting for cheaper insurance plans with higher deductibles and co-pays, thus saddling workers with a greater share of costs. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 18% of all covered workers now face annual deductibles of at least $1,000, up from 12% in 2007. Among smaller businesses with up to 200 employees, more than a third of workers have deductibles of at least $1,000, up from 21% last year."

The above two quotes show just how broken and completely out of control the healthcare system is in the United States. While the insurance companies are getting richer and richer, most Americans are receiving less and less adequate healthcare coverage. In fact, the only people happy with our current system are the rich and the insurance companies. The rich don't need the health insurance and the insurance companies are making billions off the broken system.

Even the doctors and hospitals know our current system is a joke. They must wait an ever increasingly long time to be paid for their services, and then many times receive only partial payment. In addition, the medical caregivers can no longer make treatment decisions for most of their patients. The insurance companies now make those decisions by limiting what procedures they will pay for and how much they will pay for them.

Add to the above medical deficiencies these additional facts. 1)Over 47 million Americans (many of them children) have no health insurance at all. 2)The ever rising costs of employer-based insurance is becoming a severe hinderance for American companies who must compete with foreign companies (who's employees have government-provided insurance). 3)The continually rising portion that must be paid by the worker is in effect a pay cut -- something that is certainly not needed in our failing economy.

There is a solution, but that solution cannot leave for-profit insurance companies in charge of our medical care. These huge corporations will always place their profits over a patient's health. No, the only solution that makes sense is a universal single-payer government-run system that puts doctor's back in charge of making healthcare decisions, and preserves the patient's choice of doctor and hospital.

There is such a system that has been proposed by Rep. John Conyers. It is called the United States National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676). We must avoid half-way measures that would leave insurance executives in charge. We must demand nothing less than a single-payer system. Nothing short of that will cure all the problems inherent in our current system.

Go to this website and check out Conyers' bill. It's the best solution I've seen.

Death Benefits Going To Insurance Companies

The Houston Chronicle recently completed an analysis of where state Worker's Comp death benefits are going, and the results are rather shocking. It seems that recently over $17 million of these benefits were paid to insurance companies rather than to the families of the stricken workers.

This is because of the way our state law covering the death benefits was written. It should come as no surprise that our Republican -controlled legislature would favor insurance companies over the relatives of the dead (after all, that's where the big campaign donations come from). But it is still wrong.

The law says the benefit (around $100,000) can only go to spouses and minor-age children. If there is no spouse or minor children, then the money is paid into a fund to help reimburse insurance companies for cases they lose on appeal. Parents and older children are not allowed to benefit.

In order for parents or older children to benefit, they must prove that they derived their support from the deceased worker. Of course, going to court to prove this would probably eat up most or all of the benefit, making such action a moot point.

Again I say, this is just wrong. An insurance company should not be reimbursed for losing a case on appeal. If they lose the case, then that means they are supposed to pay the benefits. They should not be entitled to any compensation for benefits they are legally required to pay. Isn't payment for legal benefits the service they are selling?

This law needs to be re-written. If there is not a spouse or minor children, then the death benefit should be paid to the older children and/or the parents. We must get our priorities straight.