If Private Insurers Stage a Strike Aimed at Sick Children… Nationalize Health Care

McCamy Taylor

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Thu Oct-14-10 06:44 PM
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If Private Insurers Stage a Strike Aimed at Sick Children… Nationalize Health Care

Some folks thought I had gone too far when I suggested that we counter Wall Street’s capital strike----the practice of withholding credit, even though banks are now flush (thanks to TARP)---by nationalizing the banks.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/528

I think I did not go far enough. The New York Times has reported that health insurance companies have responded to a mandate that they write policies for all children, even those with severe illness…by refusing to write policies for any children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/health/policy/14health.html

There is a word for what Blue Cross, Aetna, Cigna and the others are doing. It is called a strike . When strikers jeopardize national health and security, the government can move in and shut them down. We saw Ronald Reagan do this with the air traffic controllers. Well, our nation’s health is every bit as important as the safety of our airways. And the health and wellbeing if our children---our future, the ones who will have to be fit in order to take on the responsibility of caring for our nation’s rapidly aging population---- their health is of the highest importance.

Too bad, says the private insurance industry. If you want Johnny to get his shots and Janie to get her ADD treatment, you had better let us refuse to provide care for the truly needy. We will make sure that Janie can learn in school and that Johnny is not crippled from polio---but only if you let us allow Terrance to die from his congenital heart disease and Sally to succumb to her leukemia.

How ironic that the administration which promised to be more like Ronald Reagan has proven itself to be incapable of dealing with wild cat corporate strikes which threaten our public health. Sebelius could have told insurers No more cherry picking! You write policies for all children or the federal government will use its emergency powers to offer single payer healthcare to all children. That would have forced Aetna and the others to change their tune. Unfortunately, the administration has decided instead to let insurers price health care out of the reach of middle class families who have chronically ill children.

In effect, the federal government and the health insurance industry have just told Terrence and Sally Go die!

You do not need a crystal ball to see what is coming. When 2014 rolls around and folks start lining up to buy the health insurance coverage that the law requires them to carry, they will discover that no insurer is writing policies. Doesn’t matter if you have never been sick a day in your life. Blue Cross and the rest will claim that they can not afford to cover you…because they have to cover your neighbor with lupus, too. And the administration, faced with millions of angry healthy Americans who do not want to pay a fine, will roll over for the health insurance industry once again.

I am sure we can work something out Sebelius will tell Cigna. You can start restricting enrollment for the chronically ill to twice a year. What? That is too onerous? How about one month a year? That means that many of them will drop dead from their heart attacks and strokes before you ever have to start insuring them. And if they do manage to make it a whole year without healthcare, you can charge them more. A lot more. So much more that they will be unable to afford your policies. How does that sound? Now will you go back to work writing health insurance policies?

Oh, yeah. Just like Ronald Reagan---if by “being like Reagan”, you mean writing corporate America a blank check while telling working class American's Go fuck yourself .