Letter:

Americans at the mercy of health insurers

Phil Ventura, Las Vegas

Tue, Jan 15, 2008 (2 a.m.)

When Americans go to the polls this year they should know how poorly our once great country is performing compared with the rest of the world. For the first time in more than 150 years the life expectancy of Americans is decreasing, and the lack of health care is cited as a major cause. The mortality rate for newborns in the United States is almost three times that in Singapore. We rank 38th in infant mortality, trailing even Cuba and the Czech Republic. Forty-seven million Americans are without health insurance and those of us covered under a health care plan are seeing our benefits dwindle and our co-pays increase.

Our health is our most valuable asset. Why is staying healthy dependent on the profit or loss of some giant corporation that is more responsive to its shareholders than to the sick people it insures? Huge salaries are being paid to people whose job performance is based on minimizing the amount of money spent on keeping people healthy. The CEO of Humana received $3.33 million in compensation in 2005 and the CEO of Aetna received $22.2 million in 2004. The former CEO of United Health Group had stock options worth $1.6 billion in 2005.

Americans must recognize that we are all only a step away from financial ruin or death because of the condition of our flawed health care system. People we know are suffering and dying at the hands of corporate clerks while the hands of doctors are tied by greed. The bottom line of an insurance company’s balance sheet should not be the measurement of a health care provider’s performance.

In case you’re wondering, the United States now ranks 42nd in the world in life expectancy.

Discussion: 4 comments so far…

By Teaser

1/15/08 at 8:01 a.m.

Suggest removal

Just watch Sicko for the details. Even hard-core conservatives tended to accept that movie (in their reviews, at least). The whole thing started under Nixon, so it's not like our current system is some sort of time-honored, traditional way of doing medicine in the U.S. If a President could change it into what it became today, another President could change it in a different direction. But I doubt it will happen. The interest groups and lobbyists are just too powerful anymore.
By tdecorte

1/15/08 at 10:58 a.m.

Suggest removal

Some of the uninsured are already eligible for public programs (25%). They need assistance in connecting them with available resources. Others are uninsured but can afford coverage (20%). The majority of the uninsured (56%) though fall into a third category, fulltime workers who earn too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to afford health insurance.

75% of all uninsured individuals will be covered under a health insurance plan within 12 months of first becoming uninsured. Only 2.5% of the population is considered to be chronically uninsured and remains without health insurance coverage for two or more years.

Two-thirds of Americans are offered health insurance coverage through their employers. 14% decline this coverage and 2/3rds of those who decline are enrolled in a different private health insurance plans, i.e. spouse's plan. One-third who decline employer-sponsored coverage do not obtain health insurance anywhere else and become part of the uninsured statistic. Cost is the main reason why individuals will decline coverage in an employer-based plan. Many employers require employees to shoulder a portion of health benefits costs.

Knowing the breakdown helps us derive public and private initiatives to solve the problem.

Everyone involved in healthcare or the selling of health insurance or interested in improving the quality of healthcare in the United States needs to see "Sicko" or at least be familiar with one major point the documedy makes: Sh*t Happens! - And some of it quite deplorable and unconscionable.

For the longterm, what IS necessary are reforms - commitments by the American people to provide uninsured children programs, high risk insurance pools, catastrophic healthcare billing "stop gaps", as well as education on the "costs" associated with poor health and wellness lifestyle decisions. We also need to discuss unlinking health insurance from an "employer" relationship, providing true "portability" of health plans by adopting nationally standardized insurance plans, and introducing reasonable "guaranteed issue" individual plans. Most Americans (at least those with health insurance) still value "choice" in the selection of their healthcare benefits.

Private and public partnerships are needed to tackle our healthcare issues, yet each "solution" has the potential to add to the costs borne by the consumer via the private market or the taxpayer via government programs. If "Sicko" in its simplistic approach did nothing, it showed there has got to be, as Bill McKay, the Robert Redford character in “The Candidate”, expounded repeatedly, “A Better Way.” What better time to find a better way, than now.
By truthmatters

1/16/08 at 1:16 a.m.

Suggest removal

The fact that we are the only industrialized nation not to provide health care to it's citizens is unconscionable! The private insurance industry is nothing but a cancer that's infested our democracy.

Yet when given an intelligent and humane solution to our health care crisis with single payer not-for-profit health care like Kucinich supports, the media spins it to mean socialized medicine, and the powers that be remain in control.

Obama and Clinton are financially backed by the insurance industries who want to increase their already obscene profits. Edwards hedge fund Fortress is heavily invested in Humana, the insurance company featured in "Sicko."

A vote for Obama, Clinton, or Edwards, will keep the insurance middlemen in the mix. The only candidate with a truly moral plan to cover every American is Dennis Kucinich.

"Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health care in the most shocking and inhumane."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

http://www.pnhp.org/

http://opensecrets.org/
By ur1056

1/16/08 at 11:11 a.m.

Suggest removal

Many persons who are eligible for insurance decline because they are (a) young and feel they're invincible and do not need insurance or (b) wealthy and figure they'll pay for whatever care they need. What happened to the days when health insurance was considered to be a "perk" and an incentive to work? Why work when you can get it for free? Health insurance does nothing for the access to health care. A doctor can see only so many patients. Congratulations, now you have insurance, but you still have to wait to see a doctor, unless, of course, you choose to go to urgent care or an emergency room, thus driving up the costs yet again. Let's not forget that those of who purchase insurance are also subsidizing those who do not have insurance. The real solution? Do away with health insurance altogether, and go back to the days of negotiating payment.