Investment Insurance = Crappy Health Care

If you want to read more than just my vast oversimplification of the national health care insurance crock, you can find an in depth look at the latest confession from within the health insurance industry at the Daily Kos. Here's my take:

The health insurance industry is owned by investors. Investors will invest in only those insurance providers who can insure a low medical loss ratio (aka no more than 80% of health insurance premiums being used to, you know, pay actual medical bills). Insurance companies start covering too many of their customers, investors will find other suitors, stock prices go in the tank, and health care insurance providers that insure customer health instead of investor profits get penalized for being who they say they are.

I like to think of myself as a conservative, but if wanting to completely overhaul the corrupt health care system makes me a radical, so be it. Is it that radical to think any industry that lives or dies on its ability to satisfy the snakes on Wall Street is inherently evil and crippled and doomed to become a complete sham?

I guess it's the fear of being viewed as a radical, socialist, communist that makes most people wary of national health insurance. So it's pretty fascinating to hear someone from within the industry admit that the aforementioned fear is the industry's only hope.

In the video below, former CIGNA PR head honcho Wendell Potter admits that Michael Moore (and Canada and a lot of Europe) was on to something. He knows it. The insurance giants know it. Government involvement in the health care system is a good idea for everyone except the people getting rich off of the current scheme.