If you did not know the details of the stalled health care reform bill, you might think that these two newspaper chains are being
critical of the nation’s private health insurance companies.
First, the Tribune, owned by Sam Zell (staunch Republican) tells us that private insurers had a
very good year.
As the nation struggled last year with rising healthcare costs and a recession, the five largest health insurance companies racked up combined profits of $12.2 billion -- up 56 percent over 2008, according to a new report by liberal healthcare activists.
Based on company financial reports for 2009 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the report said insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group, Cigna Corp., Aetna and Humana Inc. covered 2.7 million fewer people than they did the year before.
The report Thursday also said three of the five insurers cut the proportion of premiums they spent on their customers' medical care, committing relatively more to salaries, administrative expenses and profit.
Prepared by Health Care for America Now, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups and labor unions, the report was aimed at bolstering the drive by Democrats to complete work on a healthcare overhaul, which insurers have vigorously opposed.
http://www.star-telegram.com/health/story/1964183.html#tvgThat last part is disingenuous. The nation’s private health insurers have openly gloated that the health care reform bill gives them everything they ever wanted. Folks will be forced to pay for completely unregulated health insurance. Insurers will continue to price gouge the elderly, obese, diabetics and others who really need insurance. The industry will continue to be exempt from federal anti-trust regulation, meaning that if they decide to raise rates
all at the same time Americans will have to pay. And pay and pay.
Note that Wellpoint is singled out as the biggest winner of the year with a 7.3% profit margin.
This would be a minor corporate media outrage, if not for a second story that appears on the same day (even on the same page in my local paper!) courtesy of Associated Press, whose corporate bias has been well documented in the past.
Health insurer WellPoint blames the Great Recession and rising medical costs for its planned 39 percent rate increase for some California customers. To President Barack Obama, however, it's Exhibit A in his campaign to revive the healthcare overhaul.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who received the company's explanation in a letter Thursday, said "it remains difficult to understand" how premium increases of that size can be justified when WellPoint Inc. reported a $2.7 billion profit in the last quarter of 2009.
Whether it will be enough to reignite the sputtering healthcare legislation, remains uncertain. The Democratic bills are stalled for political and policy reasons unrelated to insurance costs. Democrats in the House can't accept the healthcare bill that Democrats in the Senate have produced, and vice versa. There are also concerns about the cost.
The rate hike shock, however, could help Obama make his case that Republicans need to come to the table on healthcare. GOP leaders, who want to start talks over from scratch, are going reluctantly to the Feb. 25 healthcare summit convened by the president.
http://www.star-telegram.com/health/story/1964178.html#tvgWell, imagine that! Wellpoint announces a huge rate increase at the very same time that it reports record profits. That should make Americans steam.
That should light a fire under Congress ---and give the GOP all the excuse it needs to suddenly reverse its position on health care reform. Think of what is at stake. $12 billion in profits and the Supreme Court has now ok’d unlimited corporate campaign contributions.
This is one of the most American of scams, Br’er Rabbit and the Briar Patch. When Br’er Rabbit gets caught on the tar baby, he persuades his enemies that the best way to punish him is to throw him into the Briar Patch, which happens to be his home. The health insurance industry, which is in a public relations bind because of its unbridled greed, now hopes to convince American voters that the best way to punish it is…to give it everything it ever wanted in the form of the current Senate health care bill. The folks at the Tribune and Associated Press have just made it easier for the insurers to get their way. Note that both articles suggest that Congress will gain new momentum as a result of these stories. The writers all but beg readers to email their Congressmen to say
Something Must Be Done!….
..without mentioning that Congress has shown no interest in doing anything except getting its greedy hands on the billions of dollars of potential campaign contributions that will flow their way, if they sell us out to the insurance industry.
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