Patient Power

How insurance companies can gain credibility

Insurance companies are unpopular, so they don’t get much sympathy when arguing that the “public option” is unfair competition.  The insurance industry should come clean by admitting how much the tax exemption for employer-provided insurance coddles them, which gives them an unfair competitive advantage. It shields insurance companies from competition and discounts their products compared to paying for medical care out-of-pocket. Hence, insurers are accountable not to patients, but to their actual customers, employers’ human resources department.

Insurers would gain so much credibility by admitting how this tax policy helps them and hurts patients. They would hence be able to better oppose the “public option.”   As it is, insurance companies won’t let go of this tax benefit. Instead, they want government to compel people to buy their products. This sell-out to government can lead to their demise via a “public plan” that would morph into single payer. That would be quite bad for patients.

I discuss this and other key points about health reform in my podcast with Ben Degrow at iVoices.org.

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• Why health insurance companies are bad
• Obama: “Public health plan” would “keep insurance companies honest”
• Public health plan: if it were a basketball game
• Obama Care kills competition
• Michael Bennet’s lame support for “public option” via reconciliation