Health Insurers Hedge Bets With Fast Food Stock

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Health Insurers Hedge Bets With Fast Food Stock

Researchers Lambast Health Insurance Companies; Not All Convinced Investment Is Irresponsible

By TODD NEALE
MedPage Today Staff Writer
April 16, 2010

Companies providing life and health insurance owned $1.9 billion worth of stock in the fast-food industry as of June 11, 2009, researchers reported online in the American Journal of Public Health.

The investments were in the five largest fast-food corporations -- Jack in the Box, McDonald's, Burger King, Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and others), and Wendy's/Arby's, according to J. Wesley Boyd of Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts and colleagues.

"The insurance industry, ostensibly, appears to be concerned about people's health and well-being," Boyd said.

But, he said, "If the insurance industry is willing to invest in products known to be harmful and/or kill people then, prima facie, this is not an industry that actually cares about health and well-being."

Although Boyd acknowledged that fast food can be consumed responsibly, he said the aggregate evidence points toward a negative effect on public health.

[azul]

1. Or do the economic interests dove-tail nicely?

For the circular creation of wealth for the businesses: Taxpayers subsidize the fast-food industry which creates illnesses, drug and insurance and medical companies treat the sick with lots of help by taxpayer funding. The system has negative incentive to prevent of cure people, but huge incentives to create and treat disease: it's busted.

And the whole morally-bankrupt fraud is greased along and maintained by the corporate lobbyists bribing legislators and writing the legislation to enable this tragic fiasco. The best damned illness-perpetuating healthcare system in the world -as regards conscienceless profitability.