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

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Yeahwell...insurance companies have gradually been redefining the meaning of "insurance" from being a business in which they took some risks (as in any industry), made some profit if they were smart and lost money if they were stupid or very unlucky, to one in which they are insulated from the downside through any means necessary, including outright breach of contract (ref. the ex post facto redefinition of homeowners' insurance terms following Hurricane Katrina, or any number of health insurance claim denials), and get to reap all the profits of the upside. Unless and until that trend is shot in the head, the only thing that private insurance companies in any solution is what any parasite contributes to its host.