You've probably heard of term that law firms use, "Pro-Bono" cases right?
Pro bono publico(usually shortened to pro bono) is a phrase derived from Latin meaning "for the public good". The term is generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment as a public service.
More after the bump...
Well, the thought just occurred to me while thinking about the fact that the Health Care Reform bill currently being pushed in the Senate having no public option offered or a Medicare buy in for younger folks, why not require Insurance companies to provide a certain amount of pro-bono cases of their own?
"FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD", all medical insurance providers must use a certain percentage of their profits toward providing free or very cheap insurance plans for families that are above the poverty rate but are less wealthy then a normal middle class family.
In exchange the insurance company will receive a tax deduction.
Let's just take United Healthcare Group insurance company for example. In July it was reported they profited by over $21.66 billion in just one quarter. For the year that means they are making something like $86 billion dollars. What if we required that 2% of all profits must be used to provide for, "pro-bono" cases? Just imagine the amount of people that would benefit from this assistance?
To those that say that's not fair requiring a private industry to do something with their profits...what about what's in the House and Senate bills right now? Remember the requirement that insurance companies must provide affordable insurance to everybody regardless of pre-existing health conditions? What about forcing them to provide specific health insurance coverage for specific procedures or medicines? The bills do both those things, remember? How is my idea any different?
Ok you math geniuses out there, how many Americans could be covered by using this idea? Lets say the family/person has to make less than $30-40 thousand a year to qualify to be a "pro-bono" case and all insurance companies have to provide at least 2% of their profits toward these kinds of cases.