Since at least World War II, the health insurance industry
has been the beneficiary of federal government support. This handy PBS chart explains
how “wage and price controls (were) placed
on American employers. To compete for workers, companies begin to offer health
benefits, giving rise to the employer-based system in place today.”
By making health insurance premiums tax deductable to employers
but not to individuals, companies were incentivized to provide this perceived
high-value benefit to workers that the employer was able to attain at a steep
discount. Thus the health insurance
industry prospered as the federal tax code motivated more employers to offer this
benefit in lieu of higher cash wages.
By taking individual consumers out of the insurance market
and by states severely regulating entry into the health insurance industry, the
state insurance markets turned into oligopolies, or cartels. Employers and workers were offered an abbreviated
assortment of suppliers, plans and prices.
As with higher education, housing , mortgages, agriculture, defense
contracting or any other industry that government begins to control, the prices
for healthcare and health insurance escalated as competitive market forces were
suppressed.
Harry
Browne, the former Libertarian presidential candidate observed that "Government
is good at only one thing. It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch,
and say, 'See if it weren't for the government, you couldn't walk.”’ And so it goes with healthcare. Government launched an inflationary spiral
that it blamed on free markets and then claimed that it had to fix with added
laws and regulation.
Of course, free markets have never been allowed to work in
the U.S. healthcare market for well over half a century. Thus the Affordable Care Act became law to
add layers of complexity to the mess that government had already created.
The crony capitalist friends of our elected representatives were
licking their chops. This new law would
force millions to buy their products and force millions more to pay higher
premiums. Laggards who refused to
participate would be punished just like draft dodgers and tax evaders.
Forbes reports that big insurers were giddy over the
prospect of windfall
profits. In a related article the
same publication notes how the ACA enriches
only the insurance companies and their shareholders.
But wait! The embarrassing
malfunctioning of healthcare.gov has spurred
lawmakers to call for a delay in the enrollment mandate.
The
insurance companies are crying “Foul!”
They are pleading before Congress that any delay may result in a
shortfall of profits.
To paraphrase Allen Iverson, “We’re talkin’ about profits
here”. No going out of
business. Not shutting down. “We’re talkin’ about profits”. Windfall profits, that Wall Street has been
promised.
If profits fall short, there is a way to address that. Cut executive bonuses and perks. Cut staff.
Reduce pay. Take furloughs.
What Congress cannot allow happen is to allow the big
insurers and their Wall Street backs to make their numbers on the backs of
regular Americans who are struggling to enroll in a crappy, dysfunctional and overpriced
health insurance sinkhole.
Call your representatives and make sure that they resist the
onslaught of high pressure, big money lobbyists. Call them today!
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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon
