Thread: A blood pressure-raising debate on health care S.D.U.T.

San Diego Union Tribune Letters to the Editor
2:00 a.m. August 15, 2009
by the Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

A blood pressure-raising debate on health care

As a health insurance broker for 35 years, licensed with more than 100 insurance companies, I speak with insider knowledge. Insurance company profit incentive leads them to rescind coverage, deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, deny legitimate claims, hassle providers over payment for services, and other abuses too numerous to recount.
In the early 1990s, the insurance companies' expense/loss ratio was near 5 percent with 95 percent of every premium dollar spent on claims reimbursement. Today, the health insurance monopoly cartel spends 20 percent of every dollar it takes in on expenses, such as commissions, underwriting, advertising, lobbying costs, inflated executive salaries and profits to shareholders. Cost for insurance has gone up, shared costs to consumer insureds have increased, more Americans are uninsured or underinsured, but profits for insurance companies have gone way up.
There is no need for the health insurance industry. Health insurance is not a product that must be sold — everyone needs and wants it. It's idiocy that insurance companies decide who gets health care coverage, what health care claims are paid or denied, how much you pay for coverage, and that insurance companies have the power to stop your coverage when you change or lose employment.
The solution to health care reform is simple: extend government-run Medicare to all Americans. Government-run Medicare has a 3 percent expense ratio with 44 million covered and government-run VA coverage an even lower expense ratio, with 8 million covered.
Insurance company lobbyists, pharmaceutical giants, and hospital and medical interests have bought the “just say noâ€

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Honey always wins more proponents than a screaming verbal battle axe.
There are two more bills in the House to consider and two in the Senate, plus there will be a reconciliation of those bills between the House and Senate.
No one should be screaming at these town halls. Ask question, listen to answer, and if answer is not satisfactory, there is always a way to make your feelings known.
Too many rely on blogs for info, many without sources of where they got the info, most just carrying on the wild rumors they saw on another blog or heard on the most radical programs.
It is sad to see the American people in verbal riots at these meetings. Whatever happened to Miss Manners?

US health care isn't seriously broken, but rushing into "fixing" it can definitely break it. Surely we ought to think hard about what we are doing. We are, after all, talking about some 15% of the annual GDP. It's not even clear that anyone is smart enough to allocate that much money; but surely taking a step that large requires a great deal of thought, and should not be done in haste?

Absolutely, PowerOut! The more we rush in Congress, the more we will all suffer the price of stupidity, like forcing quick votes on any legislation.
The final, final, final legislation should be also considered by us peons, the American citizens so we have a bit of input into what happens to us.
And if I see another midnight amendment that produces another pork project attached to any bill, I will not stop talking, writing and working for getting whomever out of office. Pelosi and Reid are both getting real close in my book, since they control what goes on.

The US system is said to cost more and provide less, but the evidence for that is thin on the ground. It is asserted that the US system is much worse than the French or British system, but that depends on who is doing the assessment and assertion. It's not obvious to everyone that this is the case.