"If you're reforming the private insurers so they can't screw over the American public then why is there even a need for the public option?"
I think that is a valid question.
"In 2000, the CEOs of the largest hospital system and largest insurance company in Massachusetts shook hands on a plan to manipulate the health care market and ensure each other greater profits and market-share, an extensive report by the Boston Globe has revealed. Under the wink-and-a-nod handshake deal, Blue Cross insurance agreed to raise reimbursement rates to Partners HealthCare - the largest hospital system and private employer in the state - in exchange for Partners' insistence that other insurers pay them at least the same rates paid by Blue Cross.
The agreement enabled Partners to secure higher reimbursements from all insurers and gave Blue Cross a competitive advantage in the market. Since the agreement, Blue Cross has raised its payment rates to Partners by 75%, far more than it pays to other hospitals, helping Partners hospitals earn 30% more than other teaching hospitals - resulting in hundreds of millions in extra payments to Partners each year, as the Globe reports. Blue Cross, for its part, dominates with 60% of the health insurance market and has seen profits soar from $82.7 million in 2002 to more than $200 million each year since. Consumers in Massachusetts have faced ever-rising premiums, with individual insurance premiums raising 9% each year, twice the rate of the late 1990's, before the handshake deal.""
progressivestates.org
That is just one example, there are lots of others, lots of different schemes but they all share one thing, the goal is profit not good medicine. The patient is virtually the last consideration.
The way it seems to me, is that parts of the health care industry hire very smart lawyers and accountants and figure out how to play the system for highest profits. Patients and health care take a back seat. I think it is time that we figured out a way to put health care back into health care.
