Insurers Feeling The Squeeze To Help Pay For Public "Option"

Democrat Charles Schumer and others said, "Insurance companies should use their profits to help fund as much as $100 billion of a landmark overhaul of the U.S. health-care system."

For an insurance company, that's like putting a round in the gun that's already pointed at their head! Why on Earth would they voluntarily do that? Short answer...they wouldn't.

"Schumer and other Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee, which is leading the effort to forge a bipartisan compromise on health care, said they will probably assess fees on insurers, a plan that drew fire from the industry.

Industry leader UnitedHealth Group Inc. and rivals are facing pressure to contribute after drugmakers and hospitals agreed to billions of dollars of cost savings."

Again, why should the insurance companies contribute just because drugmakers and hospitals have signed on? Those two entities don't offer or pay for insurance! As long as the drugmakers and hospitals still get their money, what do they care? Plus, the revenue they receive will almost certainly increase under a government-run health care plan, because as we all know the government doesn't do anything inexpensively. The private insurance companies are getting strong-armed and forced down the road to their own demise.

"'We need the insurance companies to step up to the plate to be part of the solution,' Schumer said at a news conference in Washington yesterday." Is health care run by the government REALLY a solution? Why won't Schumer and the other Dems step up to the plate and pledge to put themselves and their families on the government health plan, huh? Lead the way!

My fault, I forgot...the government health legislation specifically exempts lawmakers from having to join the system. They get to keep their horrible, overpriced, inconsiderate private health care, but they are saving the rest of us by forcing us into health care run by the government, an omnipotent entity that can do no wrong!

What a travesty. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Take a look at this HHS breakdown of the uninsured population in the United States. The numbers tell the story. For example:

The Uninsured by Citizenship Status
The vast majority (79%) of the uninsured are citizens. However, a disproportionate percentage of the uninsured are non-citizens. While non-citizens are 7% of the population, they are 21% of the uninsured. Non-citizens are a disproportionate percentage of the uninsured because they are more likely to have characteristics associated with higher uninsured rates. Non-citizens are more likely than citizens to:

•be Hispanic (59% vs. 12%),
•have incomes below 200% FPL (51% vs. 30%),
•be young adults age 18 to 34 (42% vs. 22%), and
•work for small firms with fewer than 100 employees (34% vs. 22%).

Or:

The Uninsured by Work Status
The vast majority of the uninsured are working individuals or the children of those who work.(8) In 2004, almost half of the uninsured (46%) worked full time, and another 28% worked part time or for part of the year. Many of the uninsured worked for firms that did not offer coverage, or if their employers offered coverage, they either were not eligible or did not accept the offer. Based on data from the 2001 February Supplement to the CPS matched with the 2001 March Supplement to the CPS, 18 million workers were not offered coverage and another 6 million were not eligible for coverage that their firm offered, representing 54% of the uninsured.(9) In addition, there are 6.9 million workers and dependents that have declined employer coverage and remain uninsured (19% of the uninsured).(10) These individuals are most likely to decline employer coverage because it was too costly: 3.8 million, or 52% said coverage was too expensive. The February-March match file shows another 2.9 million dependents who live with a family member covered by employer sponsored insurance. While there are no follow-up questions on the February CPS to determine why dependents are uninsured, one can surmise that many of those dependents could have been insured under the covered worker's employer plan but the worker found it unaffordable to purchase family coverage.(11)

Part-time workers comprise a disproportionately large percentage of the uninsured because employers often do not offer coverage to part-time workers and because part-time income may make offered insurance less affordable. The median family income of part-time workers is about $13,000 less than the median family income of full-time workers, $63,500 vs. $50,300.

So there you have it. A full 75% of the uninsured in this country are either people who are here illegally, were not offered health care through their employer and chose not to get it on their own, or were not eligible (which could mean a number of things). This article explains the process of buying private health insurance quite nicely. An important paragraph to note is this one:

"If you think you can't afford your own insurance, you might be wrong. While there is a lot of hype in the media about the rising cost of healthcare, health insurance plans are available at a variety of prices. You might not be able to afford the kind of plan an employer would offer, but any plan is better than no plan. At a minimum, you want to be covered in the event of a major incident, such as an illness or the aforementioned broken bone."

Long story short, the government is going to deep-six all of us in an effort to cover the minority of the population that doesn't carry insurance. I would rather have great treatments available to most people, available at all times, as opposed to treatments available to almost all people, available only some of the time. Who will decide who needs a treatment, and when they can get it? Look at Canada and England. Patients in those countries wait exorbitant amounts of time for treatments they desperately need, but the powers that be have decided the patients can wait for. Countless people have died as a result of such a system. This U.S. government health care plan will kill more people than it will save as well.