Insurance Group Threatens Higher Premiums if Health Care Reform Bill Passed
This is the very reason I oppose any health care reform bill that does not include a public option. A mandate for every person to purchase health insurance really does nothing but give these bloodsucking parasites more opportunity to raise premiums. Frankly, single payer health care would be a better option, in my opinion, putting the health insurance industry out of business.
Speaking about the insurance report, AARP’s senior policy strategist John Rother said it’s, “Fundamentally dishonest.”
After months of collaboration on President Obama’s attempt to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.
The critique, coming one day before a critical Senate committee vote on the legislation, sparked a sharp response from the Obama administration. It also signaled an end to the fragile detente between two central players in this year’s health-care reform drama.
Industry officials said they intend to circulate the report prepared by Pricewaterhouse Coopers on Capitol Hill and promote it in new advertisements. That could complicate Democratic hopes for action on the legislation this week.
Administration officials, who spent much of the spring and summer wooing the insurers, questioned the timing and authorship of the report, which was paid for by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an industry trade group.
America’s Health Insurance Plans spent $11,440,000 in 2008,2009 on lobbying and $754,820 in campaign contributions for the 2008, 2010 election cycles, 43% of which was to Democrats and 57% to Republicans. If you can’t buy them, threaten them?
October 12th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I smell single payer.
skyagunsta Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
@Wizcon, From your post to God’s ears! O:-)
Sage Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
I think that’s the answer. These insurance companies have had everything their way for a long time and it needs to end.
Do people really not see what’s going on? Our representatives have been bought and paid for and we suffer the consequences. The opposition to single payer is all about keeping the insurance industry making a profit. Obama was wrong to take it off the table saying we had to use the system we already have in place. The system we have in place sucks eggs. Our whole damn country has become all about somebody turning a profit. Who cares who get hurts or dies? Certainly not the corporate honchos who believe their only responsibility is to make money for their stock holders. They have no morals and no conscience.
Wizcon Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 7:16 am
@Sage, I have no objection to insurance companies making a profit. But I also expect them to cover health as promised. It is to their benefit if those they cover are healthy. Instead, they prefer that we pay and assume the majority of the risk when we buy into their products. What they are doing is nothing more than blackmail of the American people. They already stand to get millions of new customers but they want the status quo. This shows that their input thus far is nothing but a kidnapping of the planning process of the Health care reform. The ransom note has been sent.
Time to get als Mel Gibson on them.
Anonymous Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
How does this translate into a home run for the single payer option. How about a true free market approach. What’s wrong with this?
http://www.healthcarefreedomcoalition.org/default.asp
October 12th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
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October 13th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Well if the insurance companies are able to get a giant boost from this, then I think the US economy will follow suit and begin to come out of the recession.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:07 am
In fact , I feel richer already
October 13th, 2009 at 11:52 am
As part owner of a business, I can’t wait for this to pass so I can shove all of my employees onto the public plan, even though the employees are happy with the current plans I offer. The insurance companies are predators who should use their obscene profits to cover the uninsured as well as my employees, or be driven out of business by a Government plan. I should benefit from the risks I take as a business owner, not the insurance companies.