Time to Stop Blaming the Health Insurers

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Like so many, I fell into the alluring trap of blaming the healthcare insurance companies for the state of the US healthcare system. The health insurers are doing nothing wrong. No, I haven’t suddenly swapped ends on the political spectrum. Think about it. Health insurers are private, for-profit companies whose goals and fiduciary duties to their shareholders compel them to make as much money as possible. And not that there’s anything wrong with that – as for-profit businesses, that’s what they do.

Health insurance companies’ aggressive, yet currently legal, business practices to maximize their profits include

(1) paying out as little as possible on claims by policyholders

(2) raising premiums as high as possible,

(3) not insuring people who have preexisting conditions as not to be paying for their medical bills from day one of the policy,

(4) getting rid of policyholders by any means possible once they start costing the company money with medical bills, and

(5) the exploitation of their exemption from antitrust laws allowing them to fix prices and carve up territories across the country.

Anyone with any business sense at all knows that these practices make eminent business sense by allowing the insurers to make as much money as possible for its executives and shareholders. Healthcare reform is a clear and objective threat to maximizing profit. In fact when healthcare reform hits a snag healthcare companies’ stocks rise. Insurance companies were not created to be altruistic. They have no public duty to serve the needs of Americans.

So let’s stop blaming the insurers and look for the real culprits. Who might those be? Those entities capable of regulating these for-profit companies for the public good. That would be the government. That would be the healthcare legislation still being batted about in Washington, DC as a political football.

Are you angry with the insurance companies? Tell your senator you want them reined in. Tell your senator that a public option will force private insurers to compete in rather than control the market.

Thank you to incisive MSNBC host Rachel Maddow for this lesson in capitalism. See her full segment (including Anthony Weiner’s stunning performance on the House floor) here:

http://politicalirony.com/2010/02/26/rachel-maddow-explains-our-health-care-system/

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