Why Private Health Insurance Must Go!

The Private Health Insurer's business model is a cruel, wasteful and oftentimes illegal extortion racket. It causes the utmost harm to the United States, yet provides little to no benefit. Worst of all, the elements that protect and preserve this corrupt system may have succeeded in rigging the upcoming debate in health care reform.

Here's the dirty truth about the Private Insurance Industry:


Bloody Hands. Private Insurers make self-interested and arbitrary claim and coverage denials relegating many to premature death.

Restrict Choice. Private Insurers restrict medical consumers’ choice in medical providers, inhibiting the proper function of the free market in medical services and enabling bad providers to thrive.

Adds Complexity. Over 1,200 Private Insurance bureaucracies complicate and impede the practice of medicine with differing and often conflicting billing and administrative policies.

Drains Resources. Nearly 30% of the healthcare spending funneled through health insurance middlemen is wasted on profit taking, underwriting, executive compensation and other unnecessary expense and waste.

Squanders Expertise. Our current health care model diverts providers' attention from "how to heal" to "how to get compensated" by the shameless insurers.

Manipulates the Media. Private Insurers exert a level of editorial control over the media via advertising purchases.

Corrupts Our Politics. Private Insurers manipulate elected officials with campaign donations, plum corporate jobs, and an army of lobbyists.

Brainwashes the Populace. Private Insurers use paid media to lie directly to the populace, leveraging fear tactics and other highly sophisticated propaganda campaigns in order to evade accountability for the consequences of their actions and protect the status quo.

Restricts Debate. Private Insurers’ media and political operatives dishonestly malign genuine reform as “politically infeasible” in order to limit the debate to industry-blessed half measures.

Private Health Insurance Must Go!

Reform proposals that do not remove private insurers from our healthcare system are morally unacceptable, fiscally irresponsible, and unsustainable even in the near term. These “mandate and subsidize” proposals are not well meaning attempts at realism by so-called centrists. They are a sinister attempt to marginalize the opportunity our country has at this defining moment to sideline the private insurers and move to a healthcare system that works – publicly funded and privately provided Medicare for all, as implemented in HR 676 – The United States National Health Care Act.

that with single payer heathcare that there remains demand for private healthcare too. That's not to ensure better treatment - its to help on occasions get faster treament and also for those who want better hospital accomodation....own room etc.

My gal pal across the street ~~ she had private pay insurance. She needed to be hospitalized for some female surgery. She got shitty treatment from the insurance company and the mandatory MDs she HAD to use. Paying for necessary treatment, etc.

Fast forward a few months ~~ she qualified for Medicare due to turning 65. Better treatment, less deductible. She could go back to the MD she used in the past that she liked and not the one the fucking ins co demanded she start using instead of who she had used in the past.

Fuck insurance companies. They are parasites that feed off the ill, injured and those in pain. Their entire goal is:

PROFIT! :puke: And don't ever forget that.

When I was in law school, I law clerked in an insurance defense firm. Their GODS were the insurance companies ~~ fuck the insureds. Who made the decisions in a case? The fucking insurance companies. The persons who were represented had no rights.

but see I replied to myself...eejot !. So - please see note below.

BTW - I do like your ID.

I'm english in the UK so can draw these comparisons maybe easier than you could over there. Many here use both our National Health Service, which we've had since the late '40s, and private healthcare too for the reasons I mentioned.
When you first get single payer healthcare I'd predict that the first thing that will happen is an onslaught on the system which will create immediate backlogs.

For some idea of the staffing requirements of single payer the NHS here employs Over 1.5 million. Whilst I would say that the number necessary would increase in direct proportion to the sizes of our populations it would be fair to day that the USA will have a considerably higher staffing requirement.

...:hi:

Always interesting to hear from a person who lives in a country where there has been free medical care.

The only "actual experience" I have had with the issue comes from a 2nd hand source: A friend of mine was injured while on a fishing trip to Australia. He fell of a rock and badly broke his arm. He was taken to the ER, treated and hospitalized ~~ the whole time offering up his U.S. Blue Cross Ins card. And, of course, those at the hospital laughed at this and told him, no, even tho he was not an Australian citizen, his care was covered...there would be no charge.

He told this story and stated that the care he received was outstanding. He became a convert to "socialized" medicine after this. He figured that even if his taxes went up, it would be less than he was paying for private health ins...and if the care was like what he got in Australia, it was the way to go.

And..thanks for the compliment on the ID ~~ my Scottie Maggie likes it, too!

Yet another benefit.

No thanks. This is exactly why we need to ditch private insurance. EVERYBODY needs to be on an even playing field.

Many companies use bulk private schemes for their employees. Apart from that there are many levels of private cover right down to simple cover for operations etc if the NHS cannot provide them within a prescribed period - hip replacement etc.

This is a situation that you may find difficult to judge accurately until single payer is up an running.

BTW - even if privately insured that doesn't cover routine doctor appointments, which are all NHS , and access to private hospitals is only done by referal by our own request to our own doctors. There are also occasions where even when privately insured you don't use it. When I realised, on a Saturday 7 years ago , my appendix was about to go I just got a lift down to the local NHS hospital to have it sorted on the Sunday morning. The op was NHS , I could have had a private ward but declined and got a refund from the insurers for using an NHS bed for a few days.

Parasite fits very well when they charge exorbitant premiums and refuse to pay our for promised coverage.

we'll never get rid of those sharks. They have an open killing field thanks to our own representatives.

How can we make them give up the billions they make? We can't.

Very depressing week, this week.

Makes me long for Australia.

Insurance companies are superfluous. They should be turned into a small boutique industry for the rich.

Everyone else should get the health care they need.