Props to Aetna, CIGNA, WellPoint, Humana and United HealthCare -- your level on the "evil" scale just rose even higher. As you continue to block our government from introducing national health care with your incessant lobbying and bribe-making, more and more Americans are suffering from the ensuing economic and health catastrophes, the Commonwealth Fund reported in a study released yesterday.
If you're standing up, sit down. These statistics are outrageous.
The study provides further evidence that basing one's right to health care on whether or not a despotic boss deems one worthy of employment (or employment with insurance) is absolutely insane. From a Bloomberg report on the Commonwealth Fund study:
Unemployment and rising expenses caused 9 million Americans to lose health insurance during the past two years, according to researchers backed by a group advocating access to health care.
Losses of coverage helped swell the ranks of uninsured adults in the U.S. to 52 million in 2010, according to a study released today by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based foundation that says it backs research aimed at expanding and improving care. An additional 73 million adults had difficulties paying for health care and 75 million deferred treatment because they couldn’t afford it, researchers said.
To put the new data in perspective, basically the entire population of Norway (which, not so coincidentally, has outstanding universal health care) is now uninsured:
The U.S. Census Bureau said in September that the number of people without coverage rose to 50.7 million in 2009 from 46.3 million in 2008.
Of course, numbers are actually much higher since the Census counts as "uninsured" only individuals who have gone the entire year without insurance -- not those who have been forced to endure 10 or 11 months of being uninsured.
The report (of course) also finds that those Americans with insurance are spending more than ever out of their own pocket -- either on expensive medical bills or paying down massive medical debts (incurred, most likely, as a result of their being un- or underinsured):
Forty-nine million Americans reported spending 10 percent or more of their income on insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs last year, according to the Commonwealth Fund study.
As a result of the stranglehold that the bloodsucking beasts at Aetna and CIGNA have on our medical insurance market, employers are paying more than ever for insurance, too:
Employer-based insurance expenses rose 43 percent from 2003 to 2009, while deductibles on these plans increased 77 percent, Collins said.
“The cost is driving the reduction in coverage by small- business employers, and that’s a big part of the problem that disproportionately affects poorer families,” Collins said.
Pause for a rhetorical question: Why would anyone want to open a new small business or start a new world-changing non-profit organization in a country that forces you to play doctor as well as entrepreneur?
Case in point: Starbucks spends more on health insurance than it does on freaking coffee beans!
By supporting private, mega-profit insurance carriers, the GOP (and, well, Democrats and our President, too) are saying that only one industry in America matters to the exclusion of all others: useless, do-nothing, immoral mega-profit, private insurance companies.
Oh, planning a trip around the world when you retire? You can thank super-wealthy CEOs like Aetna's Mark Bertolini and WellPoint's Angela Braly for the fact that you are spending your golden years flipping burgers at McDonald's instead of cruising around the Mediterranean:
Asked about how they paid medical bills, 40 percent of respondents in the survey said they used all of their savings while 24 percent said they incurred credit-card debt and 10 percent said they took out a mortgage or another form of loan, the researchers reported.
REPEAT: 40 freaking percent of respondents said THEY USED ALL OF THEIR SAVINGS TO PAY MEDICAL BILLS OR DEBT. I guess that's what the mega-profit insurance company CEOs mean when they say we need "more skin in the game."
Of course, there's more than just financial devastation happening here -- people continue to suffer and die in the richest country on the face of the Earth because of the barriers to health care that the mega-profit insurance companies persist in erecting. From a report detailing a town hall meeting where CT Dem Gov. Malloy spoke out (again) against CT's public option, SustiNet, which Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini likes to whine about:
Nancy Burton, a Meriden nurse and SustiNet supporter, talked about a patient of hers named “Wanda,” who Burton said had kept secret a lump she found in her breast because she was uninsured. By the time Burton saw the woman her breast had been completely eaten by cancer, which had spread to the other breast and into the armpit.
“Governor Malloy, I’m willing to pay more taxes,” Burton said. “I’m not willing to watch my patients unnecessarily suffer and die, because that is what’s happening.”
The governor assured her that he would work toward the goal of providing insurance for the uninsured so that “there’s not going to be a Wanda in the state of Connecticut again,” but that it may not be in the form of SustiNet.
Malloy told the audience after another supporter spoke that the actual program costs were still too uncertain for him to approve.
“I am committed to your goals. I am committed to driving the costs down as low as possible. I am committed to accessing those federal dollars. I’m even committed to the state playing a role and participating, but I can’t write a blank check,” he said.
So, the health care system dominated by the mega-profit insurance companies causes a woman to have her breast eaten by cancer, but a Democratic governor is still not convinced that the public option passed by his own state legislature is a good idea?!
We need to stop this damn insanity -- let's put single-payer systems in place in California and Vermont. Then, let's tell the mega-profit insurance companies: "you're fired!"
People are dying! People are losing their savings! People are suffering! This is not a pro-life America.
This Commonwealth Fund report should be a call to arms: protests, non-violent direct action, boycotts (if you can afford to do so) and media blitzes. The mega-profit insurance companies don't think we deserve to live -- they just think they deserve to profit -- let's prove them wrong!