2.5 million people work in the insurance industry...

[Peacetrain]

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Just doing away with the insurance industry with a wave of the wand, is not as simple as some might think.

EDIT TO ADD STATS FROM 2006
Employment
The insurance industry had about 2.3 million wage and salary jobs in 2006. Insurance carriers accounted for 62 percent of jobs, while insurance agencies, brokerages, and providers of other insurance-related services accounted for 38 percent of jobs.

The majority of establishments in the insurance industry were small; however, a few large establishments accounted for many of the jobs in this industry. Insurance carriers tend to be large establishments, often employing 250 or more workers, whereas agencies and brokerages tend to be much smaller, frequently employing fewer than 20 workers (chart 1).

[NYC_SKP]

1. Yep, 1/6 of the economy. n/t

[grantcart]

no the 1/6th includes the health providers not the insurance employees

[NYC_SKP]

6. Thank you.

Right you are... doh.

Now, can I edit it...

[Peacetrain]

2. Ah yep...

[ej510]

Yeah too many jobs to lose. The insurance industry needs heavy regulation and

price caps.

[MidwestRick]

36. Heavy government regulation and oversight

...will create more jobs both on the federal/state side and within the insurance industry itself. This is an absolute must.

[rwheeler31]

3. Not anymore we lost 30 today.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. But the waste and inefficiency is breathtaking, I am sure.

The challenge is getting at it - never simple. I work in big Pharma and we attempt to get at the waste. It is typically trumped by bad leadership that are protecting their empires.

[eleny]

5. It's the insane profits escalating over the years that now threaten those jobs

Let's keep the blame where it belongs - the greedy insurance execs.

[lapfog_1]

7. I would make the argument that they don't contribute to the GDP.

just like tax accountants and a number of other "useless" jobs.

[polichick]

8. 2.5 million new green energy workers?? :)

[NJGeek]

9. how many people were in the horse and buggy industry in 1899?

the march of progress

[lonestarnot]

10. How many people were in the 8 track tape business?

:patriot: carry on.

[Canuckistanian]

20. They all went into the Videodisc business

Then they went into the Betamax business. Then the Minidisc business.

The country is littered with failed tech businesses.

[jwirr]

11. So this is a jobs program.

[Sebastian Doyle]

12. A lot of people work in the "defense" industry too. And the oil industry.

Should we feel guilty if either of those criminal enterprises were to go out of business?

[JeanGrey]

13. Sorry. They are costing us too much money.

Healthcare has got to be nonprofit. Period.

[lurky]

14. HEALTH insurance employs 448,000.

Here is the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb12.txt

Just FYI, that is less than one third of one percent of U.S. workers. Yes, it would suck to lose your job if you were one of them, but our economy has been losing that many jobs every month for much of the past year, without the benefit of saving American lives or making us a better, stronger country. Additionally, if a nationally-run health system were established, many jobs would be created and the skills of these people would be in very high demand.

[Blasphemer]

16. That's how I see it too

The vast majority of those workers would end up working in the same industry but for a government run program instead of the for-profit insurance industry. It's the fatcat executives that would lose out and I don't think anyone is crying into their cereal over that.

[lurky]

28. Thank you. If you think about it, all policies

have consequences for someone. Renewable energy policy will cost jobs for coal miners, oil refiners, and many others. Legislation to reduce smoking affects tobacco farmers and their employees. Most of the people being hurt are good people who are just trying to support their families.

All we can do is try to weigh the benefit of a policy (in the case of health care, it would be huge), against the pain cause by the policy (real, but not economically devastating). If we do enact such a policy, I think it is also good to soften the blow by providing help to people who might be affected, like retraining or job-placement services.

[avaistheone1]

15. Wow! That is alot of insurance company people wasting valuable policy holders money and

time denying claims. Those folks belong in the unemployment lines or in different jobs that at least benefit us policy holders.

KISS. The solution can be simple and elegant. We have a Medicare system that works. The single-payer option would create 2.5 million new jobs and give everyone in this country health care. Somehow that seems a great deal more ethical and sensible to me.

[earth mom]

17. People in the auto industry were put out of work this year & Obama & Congress could have cared less!

And how many jobs have been shipped overseas or outsourced ever since Reagan?

No one gave a damn about those people or their jobs either.

But you want us to cry buckets for the Health Care Insurance industry?!

Nope, don't think so.


No pity for bloodsucking vampires who make money off of other peoples misery. :nopity:



p.s. Many of those Health Insurance jobs could easily be converted to jobs under a Universal Public Option plan.

[musicblind]

19. Please read my post I made just below yours. We aren't all bloodsucking vampires

I assure you.

[musicblind]

18. I'm a liscensed Insurance Agent.

My family runs an insurance brokerage, not a big business, but we have two small, family run offices and a few employees as well as myself, my mom, dad, and my brother. We sell health, life, auto, home, and commercial. We also do bonds. My whole family are all licensed and we work by the ideal that we want to help people by selling the best policy possible for the lowest amount of money. My dad always fights hard to make sure that his clients gets every penny they deserve from the insurance companies. We work hard to educate clients and never, ever, ever work against their best interests.

I wanted to say this because I think many people on DU feel that insurance agents are all greedy republicans looking to make big bucks and screw over hard working American's who should never be denied the treatments they need or feel they can't afford life saving medicine. That may be true for some members of the insurance industry (like in any industry) but it isn't true of everyone.

And for the record I support a STRONG public option even if it means we lose every health care client we have. It would be MORE than worth the sacrifice. My boyfriend lives in England, and the American health care system is SO far behind what they have that it truly is tragic.

I do, however, wish that people would remember there are some GOOD folks who work in the health insurance industry, just as there are some bad ... Some of these folks are kind people who actually care about their clients more than making money. If you feel they must lose their jobs, and maybe it IS what has to happen to save the health of an entire nation, but please at least feel some sympathy for these people who may have to sacrifice entire lives sunk into building what are often small family businesses.

I am very grateful that our business only has health insurance as only one stem of a multi-legged income table, but there are some who are not so lucky. :(

[TankLV]

30. There are NO "good" health insurers. PERIOD.

ALL "Health" insurers are nothing but CON MEN/WOMEN.

Our sorry state of affairs PROVES this...

[TankLV]

31. There are NO "good" health insurers. PERIOD.

ALL "Health" insurers are nothing but CON MEN/WOMEN.

Our sorry state of affairs PROVES this...

[musicblind]

42. That you would even make such a statement shows you are not thinking rational and are prejudice.

There are plenty of bad people in the health insurance business... but there are good people as well. I know people who want nothing more than to help others and who would do anything they could; pay as many claims as they can. United Health Care even suggested a better hospital (The Mayo Clinic In Jacksonville) for a liver transplant patient that was two states away and offered to pay all travel expenses... even for check ups if she chose to go to that better hospital (she didn't have to, just an option.)

Now, are there greedy crabs in United Health Care who think profit is more important than health care. YES THERE ARE. Those people may even make up the majority. Do we need a public option, or single payer because our health care system is broken YES WE DO. This does not mean that there are NO good workers in the health insurance business. I assure you that neither myself, my father, my mother, or my younger brother are con men/women.

And stating that a broken system PROVES there are no good health insurers is an argumentative fallacy. http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html

[PVnRT]

21. Is this going to be the new arguement now?

"Government has to stay out of health insurance, we could lose too many jobs!"

[tabasco]

22. I've changed careers at least six times in my life.

Humans are adapable.

[jberryhill]

23. All of that potential going to waste... /nt

[bigjohn16]

24. 46 million people without health insurance.

I thing it's a fair trade.

[sybylla]

33. +1

Exactly how I feel.

[OwnedByFerrets]

25. No one or any plan has ever mentioned the deletion

of the insurance companies. Even in the most socialist of countries, insurance companies thrive.

[treestar]

26. And every one of them is being scared off by their employers

And employees of doctors, too.

It helps explain the opposition, anyway.

[babylonsister]

27. Doncha know, 'those people' don't matter. nt

[TankLV]

32. No they don't - tell it to the MILLIONS who DIE from FRIVILOUS denied claims...

Sorry, but your compassion is SEVERELY misplaced...

[TankLV]

29. How many people were in the Auto or Steel industries?

How many people were in the Real Estate business?

Didn't much care for THEM, now did we. "Suck it up" everyone said.

Only ALL these other people are USEFUL and BENIFICIAL to society, while the HEALTH Insurance industry people are ALL a POX on society, and they will be better off in NEW jobs...

I care as much about THESE SCUM SUCKING SCUM as I do about the WALL STREET SCUM...

Auto, Life - they serve a useful purpose.

Home insurers - THEY should be Government Run, too - when we had the last Hurricane in Hawaii, these USELESS scum also denied LEGETIMATE claims from homeowners - they should ALSO be drummed out of business or EXTREMELYregulated - they may be "salvagable"...

next question...

[wishlist]

34. Medicare/Fed health insurance is run by private insurance companies now

For those who are not aware of how they work, both Medicare and Federal Health Insurance plans are administered by private insurance companies whose employees process the claims, not Federal Government employees. Any future public option would probably also involve contracting the claims processing to private insurance in the same way that Medicare and Federal health insurance currently handle claims. That is why many Repubs and those opposing health care changes and public option do not consider Medicare and Federal employee health care as 'goverment run' insurance and are misleading public into thinking that new changes would involve government employees taking over the entire claims process. Since government employees do not handle the claims for either Medicare or any of the Federal employee plans now I am sure that any public option would probably also have a consortium of private companies handling the actual claims processing.

Plus, everyone with money would still be able to get supplemental insurances as many Medicare beneficiaries currently do.

[Orsino]

35. That's one good reason why we're not just doing away with private insurers anytime soon.

A good public option is the beginning of a transition--but there's not reason why many/most of those insurance workers can't transition to billing for an eventual single-payer plan. I'm sure even some of those executives can be trained to perform real jobs, should they find themselves cash-strapped.

[flpoljunkie]

37. No one is talking about 'doing away with the insurance industry.' Quite the contrary!

[Barack_America]

38. I recommended this.

Jesus, people, we're not talking about the CEO's here, we're talking about working Americans.

True if we had single payer, many of these people could be transfered to govt. work, but still this is a huge upheaval. Probably worth it in the end, but worthy of consideration and care.

[Soylent Brice]

39. move them to the gov positions that would open with

the public option/single payer that would be made available. they will need local, and state offices as well.

[elleng]

40. Is anyone proposing doing away with the insurance industry?

I think not.

[polichick]

41. I WISH! nt