Private insurance companies push for 'individual mandate'

[babylonsister]

Private insurance companies push for 'individual mandate'

As momentum gains for reforms, insurers hope to turn it to their advantage by supporting a proposal that everyone buy coverage. It would be a boost for the industry, which has seen enrollment decline.

By Lisa Girion
June 7, 2009


Some may find it hard to believe that the U.S. health insurance industry supports making major changes to the nation's healthcare system.

The industry, after all, scuttled President Clinton's healthcare overhaul bid with ads featuring "Harry and Louise" fretting about change.

But this time, it turns out, the health insurance industry has good reason to support at least some change: It needs it.

Private health insurance faces a bleak future if the proposal they champion most vigorously -- a requirement that everyone buy medical coverage -- is not adopted.

The customer base for private insurance has slipped since 2000, when soaring premiums began driving people out. The recession has accelerated the problem. But even after the economy recovers, the downward spiral is expected to continue for years as baby boomers become eligible for Medicare -- and stop buying private insurance.

Insurers do not embrace all of the healthcare restructuring proposals. But they are fighting hard for a purchase requirement, sweetened with taxpayer-funded subsidies for customers who can't afford it, and enforced with fines.

Such a so-called individual mandate amounts to a huge booster shot for health insurers, which would serve up millions of new customers almost overnight.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-fi-healthcare7-2009jun07,0,1692666,full.story

[shadowknows69]

1. As lomg as they promise (In writing of course) that they'll cover every test

and procedure your primary physician says you'll need I could live with this, but there's not enough profit in that.

[Igel]

13. Please.

One reason insurance is so high already is that doctors prescribe too many tests. They don't trust their eyes and ears, they don't trust the patient, and they're scared stiff of malpractice. So run more tests.

[ejpoeta]

14. no they don't. my father went to the hospital and the doctors so many times over the past

couple of years. they never ran any tests. they said he had esophagus ulcers and sent him home. said he had this and that and sent him home. over and over. the last time he went in they finally ran a CT scan and MRI or whatever the tests were and found out that he had cancer.... everywhere. He was dead in less than two weeks. They DON'T run tests. they don't want to spend the money. and they don't. i have to fight with my doctor just to get her to test my blood sugar. i have a big family history with diabetes... and apparently cancer, now. but does anyone ever test for anything?? NO!!

[cabluedem]

15. Colonoscopy for cancer after 50 are being ditched for a cheap fecal test. People will die early . nt

[cabluedem]

17. I am so sorry to hear about your fathers death and maltreatment for his cancer. nt

[cabluedem]

18. All insurance companies try hard to find an out of paying up, IMO. Single Payer Now! nt

[Mass]

2. Surprise! Not. Without any obligation for them, it is just a subsidy for them.

Welcome for the welfare state for the insurance companies.

This is why single payer or at least a strong public option that allows everybody to come in and gets every doctors and hospital in is the only valid solution.

[JVS]

3. Mmmmm corporate welfare healthcare!

"The customer base for private insurance has slipped since 2000, when soaring premiums began driving people out."

Maybe those capitalist fuckwits should have taken a clue from what the market was telling them.

[tsuki]

4. What?!? You mean, the CEO's like William McGuire won't be able

to raid the companies for 1.78 Billion dollars in salary, bonuses and blood money. Oh woe is the insurance industry. I hope those blood suckers go under.

[Cleita]

5. Mandates means people who couldn't afford insurance to begin with will be

forced to support an industry that has no interest in actually delivering health care. :thumbsdown: They need to go the way of the dinosaur because they are the cause of the problem, not the solution. The only way I will support the insurance industry is if they get out of the basic health care business, so Medicare can take over and instead sell insurance coverage for what Medicare doesn't cover like private nurses, hospital suites, home doctor visits and other additional items that millionaires might want so they don't have to share doctors' waiting rooms or hospital rooms with us unwashed rabble.

[WeDidIt]

6. So Basically It'll Be The "Line The Insurance Company CEO's Pockets OR Go To Jail Act of 2009"

Fuckers.

[OregonBlue]

8. I've already wrote to Wyden and told him I will fight him all the way to the Supreme Court if

he tries to force me to buy private insurance that pays the millions$$$ salaries of health care executives.

[cabluedem]

16. In prision we will all have free healthcare. Oh the irony of it all. nt

[NC_Nurse]

7. Newsflash: Private health insurance companies suck.

I'm sure we're all shocked by this revelation. NOT.

[msongs]

9. I'd like to buy a congress for (insert payoff amt here), says health care Inc. nt

[Confusious]

10. I like the end of the article

Health insurers don't see a public plan "as the nose of the camel under the tent; they see it as the front half of the camel under the tent," said Robert Laszewski, a former insurance company executive and industry consultant.

"They are interested in 45 million new customers," he said, "but the first thing in everybody's mind is preserving their right to do business in a way that can be profitable and meet shareholder needs."

THE FIRST THING! on their mind THE FIRST THING! is preserving their right to do business in a way that can be profitable and meet shareholder needs.

not helping those sick get the procedure or medication they need, not making the system better and less expensive, not getting everyone coverage.

Fuck em' the fuckers.

[peacebird]

11. "be profitable and meet shareholder needs" - aren't the bigwigs usually given shares as bonuses?

LOL! Of COURSE - *that* is why they are so damned concerned about the poor widdle shareholders needs....

:eyes:

[Ms. Toad]

12. If they can't base premiums on health

and have to accept all applicants, premiums for the folks they typically insure (the healthy ones) are going to go up - how many of them would still purchase insurance if their premiums doubled and there was no mandatory purchase requirement?

[ColbertWatcher]

19. We need to start calling them what they are: predator insurance companies. n/t