This headline by HHS Secretary Sebelius in her reportjust says it all below about the ever-exploding greed of private insurance companies:
INSURANCE COMPANIES PROSPER, FAMILIES SUFFER: OUR BROKEN HEALTH INSURANCE SYSTEM
In six states, premiums SKYROCKETED while Americans suffered at home---jobless, homeless, sick, injured, disabled, dealing with sick relatives, children, rising utility bills, skyrocketing mortgage payments, and with very little light shining through that tunnel of despair for them.
Private insurance companies are quite simply parasites on the body politic. It's time to remove these leeches from our democracy!
WILL YOU HELP JOIN US TO FIGHT AGAINST THESE GREEDY INSURERS BY MAKING 1,000,000 CALLS TO CONGRESS ON THE 24th AND THE 25th?
HHS Secretary Sebelius, in her report, points out what's happening in six states by these private insurers:
Anthem Blue Cross of California announced that its individual market premiums would rise by as much as 39 percent in the coming months. After Secretary Sebelius and state officials asked for a public justification for these increases, Anthem Blue Cross delayed raising its rates for two months.
Anthem Blue Cross isn’t alone in insisting on premium hikes. Anthem of Connecticut requested an increase of 24 percent last year, which was rejected by the state.3 Anthem in Maine had an 18.5-percent premium increase rejected by the state last year as being "excessive and unfairly discriminatory" – but is now requesting a 23-percent increase this year.
In 2009, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan requested approval for premium increases of 56 percent for plans sold on the individual market. Regency Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon requested a 20-percent premium increase. UnitedHealth, Tufts, and Blue Cross requested 13- to 16-percent rate increases in Rhode Island. And rates for some individual health plans in Washington increased by up to 40 percent until Washington State imposed stiffer premium regulations.
She also quite simply calls out bullshit on the claims that private insurers are increasing their premiums because of health care costs----check out her rebuttal below!
WellPoint and others claim that the premium increases are necessary given the rise in health care costs. While rising health care costs is a known problem with our broken health care system, some of the premium increases requested by insurance companies are 5 to 10 times larger than the growth rate in national health expenditures. All the while, insurance companies and their CEOs continue to thrive.
Recent economic data show that profits for the ten largest insurance companies increased 250 percent between 2000 and 2009, ten times faster than inflation. Last year, as working families struggled with rising health care costs and a recession, the five largest health insurance companies – WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Aetna, and Humana – took in combined profits of $12.2 billion, up 56 percent over 2008. These health insurance companies’ profits grew even as nominal GDP decreased by 1 percent over this same time period. WellPoint accumulated more than $2.7 billion in profits in the most recent quarter alone.
And recent data show that the CEOs of America’s five largest insurers were each compensated up to $24 million in 2008.
This is enough. It's got to stop. We can't take any more of this. We've got to have REAL health care reform, and this is just one stop on that long road to progress. We'll continue to fight for real health care reform, because sometimes parasites get larger and larger, and larger, that it's hard to knock them off, but we have to because our country depends on us to get the job done.
WILL YOU HELP JOIN US TO FIGHT AGAINST THESE GREEDY INSURERS BY MAKING 1,000,000 CALLS TO CONGRESS ON THE 24th AND THE 25th?
Eve and I also have a new Twitter account. Just click the button below to follow the 1,000,000 Call Campaign accelerate down the track.
Disclosure:
The funds donated to the Progressive Congress Action Fund, a 501(c)4 non-profit organization headed by Darcy Burner, will be used to advocate on behalf of the progressive agenda, to advance progressive legislation, and may include payments to individuals engaged in fund raising.