This intent of this diary is to engage this wonderful army of internet soldiers that demonstrated the power of the American spirit over the last few days in the ethical battle with Cigna. The bitter sweet victory was very likely a glimpse into other victories I believe are inevitable in this fight of corporate greed against progressive compassion. I believe in the America I know and love that the system as we know it must and will be changed and I embrace that change with all my heart. However, one aspect of that movement seems to escape most debate and I think it's time we brainstormed this.
What happens to the millions of Americans that work in the health insurance industry when we move to a universal single-payer system?
I don't have facts and figures on the numbers of people involved. Frankly, I wouldn't even know where to look for that figure. One would have to inspect the personnel roles of all the major companies to truly understand the impact but I can tell you that I work for one of those corporations and see this vast network of really quality individuals around me that would no longer have a job in the single-payer system I know we need desperately.
I, like many of these individuals, don't sit at a desk raking in astronomical pay making decisions of life and death like the bean counters that unquestionably played a role in Nataline Sarkysian losing her life. My role is instead to simply give IT programming support for systems that help states administer Medicare and Medicaid payments. Supposedly our role is that of the "good guys" in this debate. It's a frustrating job though and one in which I go home each day wondering if I'm not in some way aiding and abetting a hopelessly broken system of overly complex medical and diagnosis codes that nobody seems to truly understand. Our segment of the giant corporation that signs my paychecks is a contractor for those services because that system is too bizarre for any state agency to truly handle themselves.
Medicare and Medicaid are the shining star of our health insurance picture since overall profit is not the main motivator in how care is meted out. Consequently these programs are much more efficient than any truly private system. However, even with that efficiency, I see huge and unnecessary resource waste each day in the thousands of individuals that work trying to make sense of the system that determines payments to the health care providers. Now just because that array of folks that I work with add to the drain on our health care dollars, it in no way diminishes their work ethic and dedication and, in many of them a tremendous compassion towards the eventual recipients of the care.
The spotlight right now is on Cigna and, although I don't work for that corporation, I have had my own family health insurance through them and know that they are also made up of a huge array of workers of which only a small percentage have the responsibility of making the actual denial of service determinations. Their network also includes care centers stocked with their own staff of doctors, nurses, and administrative staff that have provided very quality care to my family. I know that within their corporate leadership there have to be despicable and greedy individuals dedicated only to profits with little regard to the people that will ultimately be denied service. These people must have their huge influence removed from our society but, we must remember what removing their scourge does to the huge number of workers in a company like that who are not the problem.
Now the silver lining in all of this is probably that a large number of these people that will be collateral damage in this struggle have their jobs primarily so that their own families will have quality health care coverage and, if they do lose their income because of a move to a universal system, they do not lose that benefit.
We must then ensure as we press on in this inevitable move into a single payer system that we don't look at these huge insurance companies as being just entities of evil and see them instead as conglomerations of human beings that must have the same compassion and standards given to them that we demand they give to their customers.
Please know that the intent of this diary has nothing to do with ensuring my own job security. My IT skills don't limit me to this particular field and I don't have enough time with this current company to feel any strong loyalty. I have this real yearning as well to move into a profession in which I feel I'm actually making more of a contribution to the future of mankind and a positive legacy to my children. If I do leave though I'll leave a large number of very quality coworkers who's only connection to the evils of the health insurance industry is the logo on their paychecks. These friends and associates face a scary and uncertain future if our business model changes drastically and rapidly because of a lynch mob mentality.
America is not about that.