Letter to the Editor

[cos]

Last night, I submitted this as a letter to the editor to USA Today:

For decades, private for-profit insurance companies have been spreading fear about "government run health insurance". Despite the fact that people on Medicare - run by the government - are more satisfied with their insurance than people on private insurance, the private insurance companies have been telling us that national health care wouldn't work, because the government can't run a good insurance system, and we're all better off with private insurance. Obama's plan puts their claims to the test, and it's time to put up or shut up.

Obama proposes a compromise between a national single payer system, and the private insurance we have now: he wants to put a public health insurance option in the same market as private companies, to let people choose and see what works better.

Insurance companies' complaints about "unfair competition" are a smokescreen. They want to mislead us into a conversation about how to be fair to insurance companies, while they continue being unfair to the American people.

What the for-profit insurance companies are really saying is that they fear the government can run a better health insurance - that satisfies people more, and leaves us healthier, at a lower cost. They may be right. Congress owes it to us to create a public option so we can try it and find out. Stop worrying about the health of the insurance companies, and care for the health of the American people for a change.

Comments

[lizkayl.livejournal.com]

I think people being able to take care of their heath is more important than health care companies making money.

It's not fair that I was born with eyes that need corrective lenses and my uncle has 20/16 vision. But it's how I was made, and thus I need to pay for glasses/contacts.

My husband has worked in insurance. He was working for a medical supply company. 1/3rd of the denied claims were due to missing info, 1/3rd for typos, and 1/3rd for no apparent reason, just resubmit and they accepted it. With that sort of statistics, you get the feeling they deny a certain number of claims for no reason, with the hope that you won't appeal and just pay. I have little faith in health insurance companies.

[cos]

With that sort of statistics, you get the feeling they deny a certain number of claims for no reason, with the hope that you won't appeal and just pay. I have little faith in health insurance companies.

Actually I did once meet someone who had worked at a health insurance company and said that they told employees to just skip every fourth claim and deny it without looking at it, exactly as you describe: in the hopes that it just wouldn't matter enough to some of those people, and they wouldn't appeal.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

they told employees to just skip every fourth claim and deny it without looking at it . . . in the hopes that it just wouldn't matter enough to some of those people, and they wouldn't appeal.

Scary. Really, really scary.