Democratic Hopefuls Urged to Scrap Private Insurers

[babylonsister]

Democratic Hopefuls Urged to Scrap Private Insurers

By Avram Goldstein
Bloomberg News
September 27, 2007

Democratic presidential candidates, already criticized by Republicans for moving too far toward a government-run health system, are being urged by advocacy groups and lawmakers to go the rest of the way.

With backing from labor unions, 83 Democrats in the U.S. House are sponsoring a measure to create a national health plan, abolish the role of private insurers such as market leader United HealthGroup Inc. and second-place rival WellPoint Inc. and make all hospitals nonprofit, supporters said today.

The three leading Democratic presidential candidates largely agree on plans to preserve private insurance, provide tax incentives to make insurance more affordable and offer the uninsured a government option like the Medicare program for the elderly. Advocates of a "single-payer" system fully run by the government say they are gaining public support.

"When you build up a head of steam on an issue, people will do what they need to do to get re-elected or to get that campaign cash in the coffers," said Representative John Conyers Jr., a Democrat from Detroit, at a press briefing today. "All we have to do is build up support for it, and they'll come around. Many are secretly for it."

Conyers and allies, led by the 80,000-member California Nurses Association of Oakland, California, and the 14,000 members of Chicago-based Physicians for a National Health Plan, say insurers take 31 percent of revenue for administration and profit.

more...

http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/in-the-news/2007/september/page.jsp?itemID=32175161

[Benhurst]

1. Surely John Edwards will break this deadlock. He must know how ruthless and crooked the

big insurers are. He certainly spent enough time as a lawyer fighting them.

[PSPS]

2. "offer the uninsured a government option"

The three leading Democratic presidential candidates largely agree on plans to preserve private insurance, provide tax incentives to make insurance more affordable and offer the uninsured a government option like the Medicare program for the elderly."

This is a recipe for disaster.

Essentially what this does is guarantee that anyone who is sick or remotely likely to ever make a claim will be summarily refused coverage by private insurance, forcing all such people to enroll in the government plan.

This will make CEO's of private insurance companies happy because it means even more billions to finance their vulgar, lavish lifestyle, and provides an even larger slush fund for "campaign contributions." Plus they will get to tap the federal treasury to do it, with the "tax incentives to make insurance more affordable" (federal treasury pays part of the premium.)

And the government plan will certainly bankrupt the treasury since it has no healthy people paying into the fund.

The only rational and responsible plan is one that employs the "pooled risk" model that any health insurance plan must adhere to. In other words, we should join the rest of the world and have a single-payer system, fully funded by general tax revenue, that covers everyone regardless of income or health.

Yes, taxes will go up to cover such a system. But the increase will be less than the amount everyone saves by not having to pay private insurance premiums, 30% of which or more go to non-health-related items, such as offshore banks, private island purchases, another billion-dollar CEO "bonus," and the ever-present vigoresh known as "campaign contributions."