Aetna Favors Coverage Mandate (CEO calls for national health insurance)

[NewJeffCT]

First Major Insurer to Back Concept of Health Plans For All... (CEO calls 45 million uninsured a "national embarrassment")

Aetna Favors Coverage Mandate
First Major Insurer To Back Concept Of Health Plans For All

April 30, 2005
By DIANE LEVICK, Courant Staff Writer

Aetna announced Friday it favors a government mandate on all people to obtain basic health insurance - the first time a national health insurer has publicly endorsed the concept.

The proposal, which would include subsidies to help low-income people afford coverage, is just one tool to trim the ranks of the 45 million uninsured, Aetna chief executive Dr. John W. Rowe told the annual shareholder meeting in Philadelphia Friday.

The problem of the uninsured is "a national embarrassment," said Rowe, who has championed other provocative health care policy issues.

"If structured properly," Rowe said, "an individual mandate has the potential to expand access to quality health care and to ease the financial crisis facing the health care system."

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-aetna0430.artapr30,0,7411310.story?coll=hc-headlines-business

[DemBeans]

1. gee, I wonder what'$ in it for them

Yes, it is a national embarrassment, but somehow I don't trust an insurance industry CEO calling for a government "mandate" to purchase his product.

[HuckleB]

2. My reaction exactly.

Especially Aetna.

[NewJeffCT]

3. True, but

It's better than nothing, and certainly better than Bush's call for personal health accounts with high deductibles & limited coverage.

[leesa]

4. Privatization... a failure finally being acknowledged?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. This is akin to solving homelessness by requiring everyone to buy

a house. Oh, yes, and we'll give subsidies to people who can't do it on their own.

This is one field that the "free" market needs to get out of.

[stepnw1f]

7. And If You Can't Keep Payments

We'll own you until you do. Indentured servitude from the sociopathic ownership society.

[livinginphotographs]

6. So the CEO of Aetna wants a mandate

For people to buy his products.

Yeah, I'm sure he said this out of the goodness of his heart. :eyes:

[NewJeffCT]

9. That is true

But, I'm guessing that he's smart enough to have seen the polls that indicate Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes for national health coverage for all Americans and is trying to just put the idea of a 'mandate' out there so it won't be 100% government run, and companies like his, and other health insurers, will be able to get a piece of the pie.

[NashVegas]

8. Costs Would Be Reduced Across the Board

If health care was not allowed to be controlled / managed by publicly held corporations.

[insane_cratic_gal]

10. Aetna is a POS

When I was pregnant with my daughter 7 years ago they denied my claims for 7 months saying I had a pre-existing condition!! Ie my pregnancy was pre-existing before my bennies kicked in. Which is untrue.

I had to threaten to sue them before they started approving the claims. It wasn't until I was 7 months along that they started to approve the bills.
I had to suffer through 7 months worth of stress and being dropped by a doctor.

I don't believe anything out of them, why wasn't what they did was a national embarrassment!

[MidwestMomma]

12. You should have stilled sued them as it's been illegal to prex pregnancy

since the 1996 federal HIPPA legislation. Wonder how they thought they would be able to get away with that?

[insane_cratic_gal]

14. I was naive

to the system. For 4 months I didn't even get an appointment due to the denial of claim service. I went through the first term of my pregnancy with just 1 doctors visit. My husband and I weren't married at the time, so perhaps it appeared I was about to become a single mom. I think it's common practice for them to deny every claim.

We have military insurance (tri-care which is privatized and bought by different insurance companies all of the time), still we get collection notices because they refused to pick up a tab over a emergency visit because we didn't get approval before we walked into the ER. We have one claim My husband has been fighting one for 4 years. He was submitted to ER with severe dehydration after a training and capture exercise (sears camp.. basic military interrogation tactics and stuff) Tri-care refused to pay a bill based on a wrong ss number submitted by the hospital. Even though we pointed out the problem to both parties, it was us who had a 1400.00 unpaid collection notice sitting on our credit for 4 years!

[rockedthevoteinMA]

11. Okay, so they vote to strip Medicaid and now one of the nation's

private health insurers is talking about National Health Care? :shrug: Are they trying to turn everything into a privatization scheme?

[undergroundpanther]

13. Yes they are

And think on this:

Bush's mental Health plan,the "new freedom" initiative....Who's gonna support it if nobody can pay for"treatment???
Kids getting arrested for"acing up..."
The patriot act???

http://www.unknownnews.org/050426mentalhealth.html

Shon says the initial creation of the TMAP guidelines was underwritten by state funds, along with $3 million in grants from foundations, including $2.4 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a charity set up by the estate of a former chief executive of Johnson & Johnson, the parent of Janssen. Shon insists that no industry money went into the creation of the guidelines, though a 1999 paper he coauthored outlining the "development and implementation" of TMAP acknowledged grant support from seven pharmaceutical companies

My article on this:
http://www.unknownnews.net/040712a-upits.html

[Robert Oak]

15. where is the study

pointing to the excessive profits of the medical industry, the
pharmaceuticals and insurance companies?

This seems "smelly" as if it will be a law that all must buy
health insurance, huge boon to insurance companies...

and they can probably do it..we all have to buy car inaurance...

but where is the study pointing to the multinational corporate
excesses for it seems to me if those are brought down...

and 1st up I say ban all TV ads for prescription drugs...

[SoCalDem]

16. It could and WOULD work, if we could get congress to mandate it

The country could be broken into 6 parts (assuming there are 6 major "insurers" now).. make them BID (fairly) on coverage, and then everyone EVERYONE in an area is issued a medical card, and is assessed a FAIR-share payment amount.. That could be picked up by an employer, or the person themselves, since with MILLIONS in the "pool" the cost should be pretty low..

Doctors would soon find that they do not NEED to charge so much since there would no longer be "deadbeat" patients..same for hospitals..

Jesus Christ.. it's not rocket science.. All "civilized" nations have a plan in place already that could be studied and copied..


People who are sick should not have to BEG to get life-saving care:(