One of the developments of the past few years has been apparently lower cost health insurance which has a low cap on payout or even totally bogus health care companies which don’t pay at all. Limited Benefits: Insurers Peddle “Limited Health Care” to America’s Working Poor
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/05
People snap them up because they are desperate for health care insurance. Then they find out when the bills start coming in that there is no health care coverage. The end result is that the ligitimate health insurance companies have increased profits and the bogus ones just take the money.

We need more regulation of the insurance companies just like we should have been looking at banking excesses. That is Senator Obama’s plan. Senator McCain’s plan would deregulate and increase the availability of these plans.

Thanks for asking, because this is IMPORTANT. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Like you, I agree that an ounce of prevention is the way to go because I have had a sneaking suspicion that we were heading toward the “you’re on your own” method of health care. I do the most that I can on that but no one can avoid the need for health care at some point in his/her life and most people who live very long need it several times. Then when I started researching the subject, I found out that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here is where I get my facts–Improving Healthcare Using Toyota Lean Production Methods, Second Ed, Robert Chalice discusses relative cost of health care at pages 31-32. Readily available online are other sources, the National Coalition on Health Care, http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml; and Kaiser Family Foundation, Snapshots in Health Care http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm

One of the reasons for the rise is costs in health insurance profit which have increased in the last few years. See Insuring Health Care or Insuring Profits, Snapshot of the Health Insurance Industry, Summer 2008, Northwest Federation of Community Organizations, http://www.nwfco.org/pubs/2008.0727_insuring.health.or.ensuring.profit.pdf
It lists the profit of United Health Group at $4.654 billion for 2007. Its CEO made $124 million in 2005. Forbes Online http://forbes.com/static/execpay2005/totcomp.html

Another reason is drug prices, since the law enabling Medicare Part D prohibited the government from negotiating drug prices. Pharmaceutical Industry Profits Increase by Over $8 Billion After Medicare Drug Plan Goes Into Effect. Prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman. September, 2006.
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1108

I have more references under resources on my website, sjrobinson.com.

Thanks for taking the time to read because I think this is IMPORTANT. I would be happy to discuss any other questions or comments that you might have.

When she uses loaded words like “eliminate excessive profits,” she loses tons of credibility in my eyes. She’s too obsessed with other people’s money.

I’ll give her some credit though, she’s absolutely correct in saying that there is not really a free enterprise system in healthcare and that it is “skewed by politics.”

So the real problem then should not “excessive profits” but excessive bureacracy and politics.

The first step to solving the healtcare problem should be “behavior modification,” as in changing one’s lifestyle. To quote that old adage: “A ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.”

What S.J. Robinson should be recommending is to reduce corporate manipulation of the political process.
Let’s put an end to political/corporate corruption!