Should health insurance companies be "for profit"?

No

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by cranberryhorn

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Although I haven't seen "Sicko", I believe that Michael Moore has barely scratched the surface with his research into the pitfalls of American health insurance. There is more than a little similarity to the profits oil companies have been making, and giving out to their executives (the self selected or inherited elite), in bonuses or stock options, and the compensation paid to health insurance executives and hospital administrators.
Most all of the above make far more money than any Medical Doctor in spite of all the M.D.'s years of training. They know that America won't go without gasoline or power and that Americans are terrified of being "uninsured."
An unpredictable serious illness or accident can be a genuine family, career, or life destroying and heart breaking tragedy. It can happen to anyone, no matter how educated, responsible and wealthy, or no matter how derelict, indigent or irresponsible.
No responsible American worker, or family member, wants to be on the receiving end of even one major hospital or physician's bill not covered by health insurance.
Unfortunat ely, the odds have always been in the Insurance Company's favor. Most workers have few , if any, health insurance major claims until after age 45-55. For 30 or more years, year after year, the graduates of prestigious (and even mediocre) business schools and Health "Think Tanks" prey upon your fears and take your monthly health premiums to their vacation homes and spend them on their world travel. Genuine medical knowledge, or acute care patient status, is not a prerequisite for taking your monthly premiums to the bank. Real health problems are not on their radar!
Americans are highly cooperative and willing providers for the exorbitant salaries, bonuses and job status of those who, more often than not, weren't capable enough to be accepted into Medical School.
Of course, in the insurance administrators' minds, only fools would select a profession that requires real study, work and dedication when more money can be made "insuring" those worried about staying or getting well.
Health insurance profiteers are often seen as the "visionaries" who by virtue of self appointment, family, or business ties, assume that their "omission" of learning the real nuts and bolts of science, and the provision of acute health and illness care, is actually a sign of their brilliant business savvy.
Why not make tons of money by attending meetings, conventions and hiring account reps that can lie with sincerity because they have no clue what they are selling, or what the real bottom line really is. They are selling to the equally ignorant and easily impressed non-medically educated businesses and citizens.
Although these "short-cut financial elite health care experts" make the policies, and set the premiums that you pay, they also determine the relentless seat hours and stingy pay the hard working, middle-aged nurses who actually do have the "Acute Care Experience" to comprehend the care that the patients need, the necessity of it and the actual value of relying upon it, that once was part of the fabric of our respectable community social network.
In spite of the hype, there is no "nursing shortage" in the US. There is a shortage of doctors and hospitals willing to hire most, highly experienced, American RNs for acute care because they cost too much and are not as pretty for the profit oriented promotional brochures put out by profiteers. If it were your colon or prostate under the knife, whom would you prefer?
You must know that health care is a highly competitive business... Only a new RN grad, or a foreign trained nurse who will not stay long enough to become expensive, can access the majority of the available professional health care jobs.
It is a fact that there are more American RNs not working in nursing than the number of American RNs who are. Few truly professional doctors and nurses chose their professions for the money. They do, however, deserve to be fairly treated and generously compensated.
Those insurance and hospital administrators who are the predators of our health care delivery system, however, make ten, to one hundred times, as much money by looking nice, being generally well above average height, and in general, quite ignorant about anything of medical consequence except managing the associated prestige and money. Most of them are held in high regard by American society and envied for their "accomplishments" of being exceptionally rich, while rarely working a single night, holiday or weekend. They aren't doing anything but hiring advertisers to scare the monthly benefits out of those less that comfortable with using their own money for high financial risk taking.
Health insurance policy holders have given them the money to literally play poker and bluff our population into thinking this is a game that must be played. By being bluffed, policyholders ensure an endless supply of executive income and exorbitant health Care costs.
If you call their bluff and won't play their game, however, you might put all your money into your home and the very few other "untouchable" assets that will allow you to qualify for government sponsored or charity care should you have a serious health problem. After all, our state and Federal elected politicians ALL have government paid health insurance, many of them for life!
Currently, America's most "irresponsible" citizens and aliens are getting almost all of their health care subsidized and they are not expected to "pay it back." Collection agencies don't bother them.
They might be unemployed, disabled, addicted, or on dialysis, but they may freely visit the doctor or Emergency Room as we all should be able to. They just don't get a bill because they don't have assets the Health Insurance Executives and hospital administrators find it worth paying collection agencies to go after.
They instead go after the assets of the employed to assist them in padding their own performance evaluations or company bottom lines. In fact, they brag about how much their hospitals spend in "charity care" each year!
The hospital and insurance executives know how to stay out of tax traps, so why aren't "we the people" smart enough to quit subsidizing their country club memberships only to be denied our
coverage when we finally try to use those expensive COBRA benefits?
Many sick or injured Americans keep quiet because they are ashamed of the medical care extortion that has bankrupted, or threatened to bankrupt them. Stressed and anxious, they think they were the ones who didn't "get it right!"
Actually, they were good people who believed a huge bill of goods plied by personable, fast talking, charismatic "visionaries." Perhaps they were also influenced by well meaning elderly parents who actually lived during a time that business wasn't making money off of a n individual's health tragedy, accident or illness. Now they are making money "in the future", on paper only, or in cyberspace, with quarterly reports to pad, or "projected" savings to report to employers. Maybe they can even buy or be bought by a bigger for profit health care company and retire young with a golden parachute!
Many of the insureds employers actually use their, "for profit" health insurance companies, as a source of "predictive modeling" to find workers with potentially high future health costs. These workers are then "encouraged" to find work elsewhere, or outright told their performance suddenly doesn't measure up. Most everyone is working as an "employee at will" now and "either the company or the employee can terminate employment at any time, with, or without, notice." HIPPA? Forget it if you are the only one with the matching birth-date and sex to the high claim cost at your company! Read your contract! These practices have been witnessed and documented, but, still there is no government regulation of how "self insured" companies use the private heath information they contract with their Third Party Administrators (LLCs of course!) to provide.
If Americans were really smart, they would skip that health insurance premium, 401K, IRA, and stock portfolio and put all of it into their home and spend it to enjoy their life and family while they are healthy. They might even become wealthy after the extortion costs of health care foregone frees them. If would take a mass movement to be really effective for all Americans, however.
Why not just have a home and a great life and starve the insurance companies and hospital executives out of business? This is how a free market should work. If we won't regulate the answer is obvious: Don't drive very much and don't buy health insurance. Oil and health care costs will plummet! If all your wealth is in your home, you will receive government paid or charity care should catastrophe hit.

The problem is that too many Americans are still willing to be extorted for both oil and health insurance when both are controlled by a class of self-indulgent and privileged, paper or cyber barons who really have nothing to offer except their private collection and use of money as the measure of a successful life.
If money equals self esteem to these people, it is time to take away their false sense of "special-ness" the way they take away your health insurance after you ever need to use it.
There are solutions, but the budget to condemn the good ones is vast. Web sites which rely on advertising may not publish ideas which might divert potential investors in the works of their unpaid writers. Without your help the solutions may be extinguished, just as great little businesses are bought up to prevent them from cutting into the profits of those who have market monopolies.
Are you going to be bluffed out of your hard earned money while the executives play golf? This is what the actions of the majority of Americans say they want if they continue to pay premiums to the slick and the rich for a very false sense of security. Actually, you might make out very handsomely by thoughtfully researching and carefully managing your own risk.
Perhaps you have already been frightened and bluffed into paying the majority of your income for a very false sense of security. Those hospital and insurance executives get their insurance as a perk and they certainly do enjoy their lifestyle. Their security comes from your hard earned money. They really do have it all!
But what will happen to you if you get divorced and your spouse's income was covering your health insurance costs? That pitiful uninsured person might suddenly be you, too!

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