Within a couple days of those new ads on TV trying to scare people about the nonexistent threat of single-payer government health care, it's poetic to see news items turn up that show how far private health insurers under our existing system have run amok.
First there was a report from the Senate Commerce Committee (which we might suppose is not unfriendly to business interests) regarding how "insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell 'junk' policies that do not cover needed care." (Quote is from the Washington Post story, not the committee report itself.) A former insurance executive relates that "The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable -- publicly accountable -- health-care option," a tactic that "may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans." The report also brings up that most companies use deliberately confusing forms, as well as purposely unrepresentative "usual and normal" cost figures on which to base compensation. Click here for the full report and related materials.
The same day, news from the other side of the Hill reported a House committee looking into operational irregularities in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. (Don't be confused by the name: That's not "government insurance," it's the plan under which private-sector insurance companies offer a vareity of policies to federal employees, including Congressmen.) Here, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, notes that the government has not sought to regulate the plan, relying instead on competition among private insurers to keep prices low (just as opponents of the "government option" propose that we all should do). Guess what? Prices aren't low...federal employees are being charged "substantially more" for prescriptions than in other plans, even while their medical information is often being sold without their consent by pharmacy managers.
Of course, I understand that these reports are coming at this time for a reason -- to influence the debate on health care reform. I am certain that the abuses reported are not common to all companies (though probably to a large majority of them). Nevertheless, these reports bring us actual statements by a variety of people in authority both within and outside the health care industry, so they are far more credible than the chicken-little fantasies conjured up by industry lobbyists to scare us about a "Canadian system."
Both reports provide very strong evidence of why we need a government option in our health care mix.
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