Pajamas Media published my article today:
Health Insurers’ ‘Sins’ Don’t Justify Reform
Are health insurance companies evil? A web search for the phrase turns up almost a million hits. The common reasons for this passionate indictment are insurance company profits, denial of claims, and rescission of policies. But these do not justify ...
Is the for-profit insurance industry a "predator" that "prevent[s] us from having a decent health care system"? Letter writer Bruce Robinson says so (Daily Camera, December 1). He's partially right. The real predators are politicians who inhibit needed health policy reform. But insurers are guilty for concealing how they benefit ...
A wonderful post by John Goodman:
Competition from a “Public Plan”: What to Expect
60 Minutes: Medicare fraud is $60 billion a year
YouTube versions w/o commercials: Part 1, Part 2.
GAO: Medicaid fraud was $33 billion in 2007 alone [page 32]
Fortune Magazine: The top 14 insurers earned $8.6 billion last year
These figures per ...
Just in case that sounds appearling, William Shughart II of the Independent Institute (CA) makes some good points in a recent op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. An excerpt:
When President Obama told the people attending a town hall meeting on health care that “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, ...
John Lott makes excellent points (emphasis added):
Given all the attacks on profit-making insurance companies, what is possibly more surprising is that by far the dominant players in the "full" insurance market are non-profits. Indeed, one of the motives of the government insurance option is to take profits out of the ...
Linda Gorman does a great job pointing out the misconceptions in a Denver Post news article:
"Patients on Medicare or Medicaid do not have insurance. They have government provided health care."
"[S]ince when is it a “major flaw” in the US health care system when people in it withdraw their labor because ...
With the so-called "stimulus package" threatening to expand government control over health care even more, Grace Marie Turner reminds us of the kind of private-sector innovations in health care and insurance aimed to please customers:
Spurred on by competitive pressures, many health-care companies have devised impressive solutions to health needs while ...
How much profit do they make? According to a recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, just 3 cents on the dollar. This is pretty small compared to those in other industries.
The profits would be less if there were more competition. That is, if the tax code didn't favor employer-provided insurance, which makes ...
