Insurers Make Pitch For Health Coverage Mandate

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(11-19) 08:50 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The health insurance industry said Wednesday it will support a national health care overhaul that requires them to accept all customers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions, but in return it wants lawmakers to mandate that everyone buy coverage.

Lawmakers have signaled their intent to craft health care legislation early next year, and the insurance industry's support would make passage easier. That legislation is expected to closely track the proposals of president-elect Barack Obama. However, Obama separated himself from his Democratic challengers by opposing an individual mandate for adults to buy health insurance.

More lawmakers may agree to a mandate if it means the insurance industry will back those efforts. They'll remember it was the industry's opposition 15 years ago that helped scuttle former President Clinton's health plan.

The board of directors for America's Health Insurance Plans agreed to the trade-off Monday night. The board endorsed the proposal after a series of hearings in various states.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/19/national/w084529S21.DTL

[bluestateguy]

1. I oppose anything the health insurance industry supports

They are selfish, greedy, evil bastards.

[Delphinus]

6. They're trying to save their own skin.

HR 676 NOW.

[TheCoxwain]

13. you are being kind to those blood sucking monsters

[acmavm]

15. Yeah buddy!! It's not like they have a history of honest and honorable

service to their subscribers.

Mandate that everybody chip in? WTF is that?

[dkofos]

26. Ask anyone from Ma. how well that worked for them.

[Uncle Joe]

34. It's what they've done with car insurance as well, making it mandatory. Lobbying for law

that requires the American People to subsidize their industry.

This is just more corporate warfare against the American People's freedom, independence and best interest.

[Blue_Tires]

70. +1

[pilgrimm]

20. exactly

[peace13]

21. Too funny!

You could be my twin!

[dkofos]

25. I'm with you

[quidam56]

31. Acceptable Standards of Health Care in Tennessee and Virginia

Health Care needs a CURE ! I too oppose anything the health insurance and hospital mega profit machines are doing to us. Profit care comes before Patient care in Tennessee and Virginia. http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[NikolaC]

35. Agreed

They are loathsome, vile, murderous, selfish, lying pieces of dung and I don't trust them or any "helpful" suggestions that they would make. HR676, or something similar is the only alternative that makes sense. If we could afford trillions to bail out the banks and to pay for wars, then the cost of universal health care is a walk in the park in comparison and well worth the cost.

[AllyCat]

2. And the insurance industry's support would make certain we have more of the same

only they would make more money and we'd get sicker. Support Kennedy's bill for universal, single-payer!!

[kath]

52. Is Kennedy's bill single-payer? I think it's just more of this universal INSURANCE crap, not

universal HEALTH CARE.
Insurance companies are just blood-sucking parasites. They need to be eliminated from health care ASAP.

[Schema Thing]

3. The insurance companies should not even have a place at the table

in these discussions.

[enlightenment]

10. Agree completely!

This is like inviting "Hannibal the cannibal" to FBI headquarters to help figure out how to stop him.

The rooster inviting the fox in to sleep with the chickens.

It's nuts.

[slinkerwink]

4. so they want to force people to buy crappy health insurance?

[aquart]

9. Yes.

[msongs]

5. no deal unless is puts final say back into the hands of your chosen doctor nt

[OwnedByFerrets]

7. We will accept all customers ........dont anyone mention that

we will charge them so much that only the rich can afford it.:evilfrown:

[aquart]

8. Tell the greedy murderous bastards to go to Hell.

But promise to include them in our universal single-payer healthcare...as Americans.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

11. Great. Overpriced bullshit catastrophic policies that we're forced to buy.

Watch a bunch of employers drop coverage overnight too. If people are mandated by law to buy insurance then why should you offer it to them as a benefit of employment?

[madmom]

12. ah... thanks but no thanks!

[wroberts189]

14. Just look at MA to se how that will work.. total failure

Idea was ... make everyone pay and premiums become affordable because everyone is paying in.


Didn't work out that way... they just wanted the MONEY ..took it and ran.

Premiums went up as now it was mandated by law... the industry exploited it to the max.

When will people learn.

As John Edwards said ... give them a seat at the table and they eat all the food.

[dkofos]

27. Did you expect romney's plan to be good for the people of Ma.??

Didn't think so.

[wildflower]

43. I'm wondering, though, why this works for car insurance

But it didn't work for health insurance?

I'd like to find a way to make universal health care work for everyone, and get passed by legislators. I hope we can figure this out.

There's also a plan in Hawaii that apparently didn't work, and I'd like to figure out how to avoid the problems there as well.

[customerserviceguy]

66. "Works for car insurance"???

Yeah, it works great. :sarcasm: They piss so much money away on advertising, and they use non-pertinent criteria to base jacked up rates on, such as credit rating.

You can't watch a half-hour of commercial TV without a lizard or a caveman trying to sell you car insurance. Somebody's paying for that, and it ain't the CEOs.

[AllyCat]

67. I'm with laptoprepairguy. I don't think auto insurance works

You might have a low rate now, but heaven forbid you make a claim. Up go those rates. Miss a payment on something and get a ding in your credit report? Now you are "higher risk". They are crooks. They will find a way to pay for nothing at all if they possibly can.

[wildflower]

69. Good point.

But it's more affordable than commensurate health insurance premiums, isn't it?

On edit, I just had another thought. If we can't afford car insurance, we usually don't buy a car, so in that sense we can opt out. But if everyone is mandated to buy health insurance, no one has a way to opt out. So how do you make people pay who can't afford it? (Unless there is a sliding scale based on income, as there is with taxes.) I think that is the main difference between these two types of mandated insurance.

[dflprincess]

72. A sliding scale doesn't mean it will be affordable.

As a rule government programs with fees based on income really don't bear any relation to reality. There are some programs (and I think SCHP may be one of them) where the income scale used for New York City is the same one used in rural parts of the country. And it isn't a reasonable income for NYC that is used to determine what you can pay.

[dpbrown]

16. Of COURSE everyone should be in the coverage plan - that's what was wrong with Obama's plan

Senator Clinton clearly had a better plan for health care.

Letting people "opt out" as Obama has said he intends to do will make it more expensive for everyone.

Get everyone in, and get the insurance companies' backing.

[peace13]

22. We could change that to say 'original plan'.

I don't think that the plan is set in stone yet and wouldn't Hillary be just the person to help perfect it? Peace, Kim

[dkofos]

29. We don't need insurance, we need HEALTHCARE.

[dflprincess]

73. We don't want the insurance comapnies involved at all

they will still find a way to avoid paying claims and set up the system for failure so they can come back and saying things were better with a "free market" system. Trust me, I used to work for these bastards.

[Fovea]

17. Two words

No Thanks.

The way industry is presenting itself for the public dole is sickening.

Universal Single Payer now!

[margotb822]

18. Everybody would have it if they could afford it

You can't just make people buy it without doing something about the cost. Ugh...

[Piewhacket]

19. Regulate Provider Fees and Insurance.

Thats the way. It doesn't have to be single payer or any other
whack wing strawman.

Medical Providers
Rule 1.
A medical provider (eg doctor, hospital) shall not charge an unreasonable fee.
Rule 2.
The penalty for violating rule 1 is fine or discipline up to and including loss of license.


Insurers
Rule 1.
Must accept every applicant on the same terms as offered to any other.
Rule 2.
The penalty for violating rule 1 is fine or discipline up to and including loss of license.

Then enforce it.

[RantinRavin]

23. 2 problems

1. define "unreasonable"

2. Must set rates that can be afforded by all.

[dkofos]

30. We don't need insurance, we need HEALTHCARE.

[Vinca]

24. The insurance industry caused the problem and they ought to sit

on the sidelines unless we want to hear from them.

[AllyCat]

68. How about they sit at the kids table?

Oh wait, I wouldn't want them sitting with my kids.

[amitta]

28. capitalism by gunpoint

buy our product or else.
this is why I voted against Hillary in the primaries.

[sarcasmo]

32. That is the worst idea ever. Mandate people to have health care, who would get rich?

Insurance companies, what a crock of shit.

[Blue_in_Mass]

33. WTF

The health insurance industry said Wednesday it will support a national health care overhaul that requires them to accept all customers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions, but in return it wants lawmakers to mandate that everyone buy coverage ...

Put these fuckers out of business already! They are lobbying our congressmen to FORCE us to give them our money.


These corporations want to tax us!

[girl gone mad]

36. I'd like to conscientiously object to giving my money to..

corporate for-profit health insurers.

[The Doctor.]

37. Great... just like the laws that mandate vehicle insurance.

But don't pay for it.

Only that is justifiable, this isn't.

[kaygore]

38. Congress needs to see "Sicko"--single-payer health care

Let no one profit from illness!

[nichomachus]

39. To see what this would mean

just look at Medicare Part D -- it's a goldmine for insurance companies. They get the gold. We get the shaft.

[Lionel Mandrake]

54. Actually, it's more of a gold mine for the drug manufacturers.

Thanks to Bill Frist, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating drug prices under part D.

A report prepared for REP. HENRY A. WAXMAN:

http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20051122163450-37554.pdf

includes the following tidbits:

When Democrats argued that Medicare should be authorized to negotiate
directly with drug companies for low prices, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
rejected the proposal, claiming that “competition through the private sector,
through bulk purchasing and negotiation, is a more effective means to hold down
prices.”

At the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, this report examines whether the
Republican promises of low drug prices have been achieved.

[bain_sidhe]

40. I'd be happy to accept a mandate to buy health insurance, as long as

one of the options was a government run, not-for-profit, medicare-like insurance "product."

This is what I liked about Hillary's plan. Obama's didn't have a comparable element - he would allow people to buy into the government "pool" - which is a collection of plans offered by private insurers, and government employees can chose from among those plans whichever one suits their circumstances best. But, again those offerings are provided by private insurers.

Hillary's plan had, among the choices, a plan offered by and run by the government, just like Medicare. IMHO, that was the "back door" to single payer. If the gov plan was cheaper (due to lack of profit-taking) and more comprehensive (due to lack of a profit-incentive to deny care), eventually, everybody would pick that. Employers could choose (and pay for) that plan for their employees, too.

And, as for affordability, both of them had subsidies for low-income people.

[eridani]

51. We can't afford that. Every dollar to a private insurance plan of any kind--

--is a dollar taken away from actual health care.

[hunter]

41. Yeah right... How 'bout we just deny these insurers coverage and let them die?

I'm for a single payer national health plan that puts these bloodsuckers out of business. I also wouldn't mind if quite a few insurance company executives ended up getting taxpayer subsidized health care, housing, food and clothing as inmates of our federal prison system.

[OhioChick]

42. If the health insurance industry is for this....

Something smells.

[Lugnut]

44. Memo to insurance companies:

Pitch this. Health care insurance companies are not the solution because they created the problem.

[workinclasszero]

45. fuck the INS companies

I see health INS companies and wallstreet theives in the lowest ring of hell myself. We need to get behind Teddy's bill 1000 percent!

[JerseygirlCT]

46. Shouldn't we look at what the best system is first

and then talk to the insurance industry?

Isn't it obvious that their first, perhaps only, motivation is their bottom line?

Let's look at what would work. Sure, build in some sort of capitalist incentives - maybe that's just how our system works best. But bring those guys in only after we know what we want.

We need to bargain here from a position of power, not as petitioners.

[Zhade]

47. Complete fucking horseshit. We need health CARE, not INSURANCE.

It is absolutely INSANE to put medical coverage decisions in the hands of companies whose job is to DENY benefits to increase their bottom line!

[AlphaCentauri]

48. Now, Health Insurances want universal health care, yeah right

were they have been the last 30 years?

[nodehopper]

49. that would be okay if

it was super-heavily regulated. no exclusions based on preexisting conditions, cap on fees, no copays.

[regnaD kciN]

50. Sure! Why not turn "universal health-care" into...

..."universal soak the American people for our benefit?" :grr:

That was the main initial reason I backed Obama over Clinton last year -- the "universal mandate" plan is not health-care, it's a new, and massive, "health tax" that will be far larger than any tax increases dancing in the fevered Republican dreams of Democratic boogeymen with which to scare the American voters.

[unkachuck]

53. "...health insurance industry said Wednesday it will support..."

....why do we have to have wall street and insurance companies between us and our doctors skimming healthcare dollars and denying care?....

....are insurance companies licensed to practice medicine?....it's time to kick insurance company profit out of healthcare....they need to find a new jobs at shit-mart or go to wall street and gamble hedge-funds....

....a government run single-payer system is the only way we're going to receive good bullshit-free healthcare at an affordable price....

[burrowowl]

55. Universal Health Care like in France and

Germany!
NOW!
This would also help jobs!

[gtar100]

56. The only way everyone could pay for it is if we pool our money together.

How can you demand someone pay for health insurance at the current rates when they're already making choices between food, gasoline, and heating. Worthless bloodsuckers. Parasites on humanity.

[DogPoundPup]

57. Health insurance industry makes pitch for coverage mandate

Source: The Detroit News

WASHINGTON -- The health insurance industry said Wednesday it will support a national health care overhaul that requires them to accept all customers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions -- but in return, it wants lawmakers to mandate that everyone buy coverage.

Lawmakers have signaled their intent to craft health care legislation early next year, and the insurance industry's support would make passage easier. That legislation is expected to closely track the proposals of President-elect Barack Obama. However, Obama separated himself from his Democratic challengers by opposing an individual mandate for adults to buy health insurance.

More lawmakers may agree to a mandate if it means the insurance industry will back those efforts. They'll remember it was the industry's opposition 15 years ago that helped scuttle former President Clinton's health plan.

The board of directors for America's Health Insurance Plans agreed to the trade-off Monday night. The board endorsed the proposal after a series of hearings in various states.

Note: the complete short article is as seen her

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081120/POLITICS/811200344/1022/rss10

[WCGreen]

58. The only way to get true universal health coverage is to get the

insurance companies profit motivation out of the mix...

[Cleita]

59. Oh yeah, I'll bet they do!

Damn! Run these people out of Dodge!

They still get the gold mine and the sick get the shaft!

[KakistocracyHater]

60. What has actually worked in Europe & other

countries & what tacts have failed? DON'T do what is a proven failure/dead end, learn from others' mistakes, sounds easy but try to keep this in your mind while people on all sides are shouting at you & pulling you in all directions.

[Wapsie B]

61. Now I've got a firm grasp of the obvious

but to have everyone buy coverage there has to be a way for people to afford these policies. If it's anything like COBRA is now, forget it. Pay for it through our taxes and give everyone a voucher for health insurance.

[quidam56]

62. We need a Cure for Health Care,

Especially in East Tennessee where "horrifying" health care is "acceptable" health care. Profit care comes before Patient care.

http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[susanna]

63. Oh - so the insurance companies get to set the stage.

That's interesting. Just who is in charge here? This is maddening, not to put too fine a point on it.

[McCamy Taylor]

64. Private companies make profit by driving sick people away. They

will do this by making it hard to get the services that sick people need. So, for instance, you will have to drive long distances to see a specialist for an expensive disease or get treatment for an expensive disease and they will have a limited number of doctors to treat those with expensive diseases and the ones they have will have bad personalities and you will have a long wait. Plus they will not cover any treatments that they are not absolutely forced to cover and they will have a hellacious review pollicy to make it extremely difficult to get anything authorized. Same as any HMO. And they will get sneaky and have lots of cheap second tier products that will not cover necessary services but it will not be apparent until you get sick and need them, at which point you will be advised to apply for Medicare.

Forget about seeing any provider if you move out of area.

Insurance companies tested all the ways to save money when they can not exclude sick people under the old HMOs and they know them all. Mostly they involve driving anyone who gets sick off their plan and onto another plan, preferable Medicare or Medicaid. So, privates make a profit from the premiums of the healthy and the tax payer pays for the care of the sick.

The only way privates should be involved is if they ensure everyone in a wide geographic area.

[4_TN_TITANS]

65. Like letting the oil companies set energy policy...

Sure to be win / win :sarcasm:

[dflprincess]

71. Months ago I said I knew something was wrong with both Clinton's and Obama's

health plans because the big insurers weren't screaming about how awful they were. Any plan these crooks agree to, can't be good for us.