Why do you think the Insurance Companies wrote the Health Care bill?

What is the rationale behind people's thoughts that the Health Care bill was written by the insurance industry and that the "tea baggers", as we are called, are the front lines of the insurance industry? I dont understand this line of thought so maybe some of you that think this will be willing to fill me in.

The reason why I dont understand this line of thought is because to me it just doesnt make any sense. Under this line of thought, the insurance industry wrote a bill and asked the democrats to pass the bill, who are supposedly for the "little guy" and the poor people. Nevermind that the party that is supposedly for big companies and the insurance industry had the power to put this bill thru the 8 years prior, no they asked the democrats to push this bill thru.

Not only does the insurance industry ask the more unlikely party that would go for this bill to be put thru, they also asked the republicans to not vote for this bill what so ever and to take every step they could to talk down about this bill. And not only this, but the insurance industry also creates a suppossed "grass roots" movement to form rallies and convince the American people to go against this bill and to also try and vote out anybody that is for this bill to be replaced by somebody tthat isnt a complete political whore.

And to top it all off, you also (you being the insurance company) pretty much guarantee that you will be put out of business in the near future. You do this by immediately putting in to effect that you now have to carry 85% in reserves of what you project as paying out in costs; allow your customers to start to carry their children in a family plan until they are 26 effectively cutting the amount of money you take in; immediately increasing the amount that you have to pay out this year by covering all preventative care 100% even though you cant raise premiums until January 1 of next year; when you do raise premiums this coming year you realize that you will have less people be able to afford your health insurance so they will drop you effectively letting you take in even less money; you also decide to cover all preexisting conditions which means to will have to pay out even more money than you take in.

I might get one reason why these people think the way they do in that the bill now requires all Americans to buy health insurance, but that doesnt come into effect until January 1, 2014, which if you see my other thread just on that subject alone you will realize that all of our costs will go up and we will become bankrupt, as a nation. But, if you were the insurance industry and you wrote this bill, wouldnt you make all the people in this country buy your health care plans first before you have to pay out all your money that you are sitting on?

I just dont get it, maybe some of you that think this way would be happy to fill me in please.

Also, here is a link to the thread that I wrote about 2014 being the downfall of our economy if you interested. www.abovetopsecret.com...

Since 1980 Washington has been greatly corrupted by the influence of corporate money, offering politicians money for campaigns as well as jobs to both elected and unelected officials when they leave office/job. And it hasn't helped that, contrary to portrayals of Democratic candidates as flaming liberals at best and Marxists at worst, Democratic presidents have come from the corporate side of the party.

The current debate over health care started out as a push for single payer, universal health care. A Medicare for Everyone. As soon as I heard late last Spring or early Summer all the talk about the millions of uninsured, and the focus of the debate shifting to whose millions to believe, R or D, I knew there would be NO single payer.

Given an economy where the "little people" had lost their wealth, jobs, and the means to pay for rising health care costs, the insurance industry could only head off a disaster for themselves, by playing BOTH parties. The HII called in its favors to Max Baucus, so the crash landing would be soft. Meanwhile, the TPM was co-opted to head off a complete disaster for the HII, by ensuring all talk of single payer would be stopped. The TPM became the HII's "death panel" to ensure the death of single payer.

In the end, the "reform" was a compromise for the HII, along the lines of arguing with oneself. Maybe now Americans will understand the extent of corporatism in their country.

Many "little people" unknowingly made a pact with the devil 30 years ago, when they latched onto a party over social issues, electing politicians who then voted against their economic interests. With a country so evenly divided over social issues, all it would take is a 50-plus-one margin to win. It also didn't help to have the D party become less progressive economically.

Instead of Love American Style, we now have Universal Care American Style, complete with its corporate sponsors.

Some say insurance companies did help write the bill, some say they didn't.

Anyway, this is the plan that I have read the insurance bill is similar to.

- Build on the current employer-based system: The more than 160 million Americans who receive their health insurance through an employer should be able to keep their coverage, if they so choose.

- Strengthen the health care safety net: Medicaid should establish a “clear, simple, transparent income test” where everyone above 100% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is eligible for coverage. The State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) should also be expanded to children in families with incomes up to 300 percent of FPL.

- Helping hand for working families: The federal government would subsidize coverage on a sliding scale up to 400% of the FPL.

- Guaranteed coverage requirement: If every American is required to purchase health insurance coverage — a.k.a. individual mandate requirement — the insurance companies would provide everyone withe coverage.

wonkroom.thinkprogress.org...

The Health Care bill could have been written by some altruistic and immoral think tank group on funding from the federal government to in essence find ways to maximize profits for those that stand to profit withing the Health Care Industry.

Once those think tank studies or white papers are passed to certain key politicians, the bribe money that contributes to those select politicians ensures that legislation or federal laws are passed that assures a monopoly of a customer base and complete control over profits and costs, exclusions to pre-existing conditions, cosmetic and other health related services, complete control over every aspect of your ability to make more profits while providing less and less services to those paying by law whatever is decided upon.

In a true capitalistic business aproach, one offers a product and the market place determines if your product is worth the price that people pay for it.

If the product is a poor product, then you suffer sales and eventually go out of business because your specific product did not compel anyone to buy it. As such in the true world of capitalism, only the best products should rises to the top and only the best products should have longevity in the International business world.

Well, today things have changed. Now we have the corporations pay for some group to write the legislation and all of the laws necessary to then place in the hands of politicians to take credit for and to get passed into law after being bribed into millionaire status.

Once into law, they can now dictate that you will buy the product even if you don't want the product, or even if the product is no good. It does not matter because the scam was to get the legislation passed that forces the customer to buy and pay a certain price whether you like it or not and which of course leaves you with no competitors to worry about competing with and no way for the customers to complain without being penalized, fined or threatened with incarceration.

This is the age of the fake success business plan where through money, influence and legislation you dictate into the law who has to buy, how much they must pay for it and the frequency and whatever else is required to ensure that those that set up such a scam make billions and billions in stolen profits from those held hostage to the new hostage corporation dance which if my memory serves me right is called "FASCISM".

Thanks for the posting.

reply to post by MaxBlack


I understand what your saying but how does any of this ramble appy to the fact that this bill will effectively shut out the insurance industry in whole? If they were the evil masterminds that were helping to make this country facist then why would they eliminate themselves? Remember, they have to pay out all of this money now and they cant even raise a single premium until January 1, 2011. Also, why wouldnt they, if they have so much power as you allude to, make it so every citizen must buy insurance sooner so they dont incure such losses? This bill is definately seen as both a negative for the insurance industry and the American people, so if the insruance industry was behind it why would they cut their nose to spite their face so to speak when they could just as easily not? If there was another industry behind it, which industry would that be as I assure you, not a single company that doesnt pay for their employees health care would like to have to automatically start paying for it or be fined in the next couple of years.

reply to post by desert


I would like to know how this bill became a "death panel" for single payer. The insurance industry will crumble under the weight of this bill. Who do you think is going to be left standing with all this easily printable and neverending suppy of money just waiting for it to happen? In truth, this is a first step into getting single payer. With the insurance industry out of the way you get a universal health care plan thru the government and they will make sure it will be the only option and they will dictate how much you must pay towards it.

reply to post by dizzie56


Far from being out of the way, the centerpiece of the bill IS universal coverage VIA private health insurance.

Any real reform which cuts costs would be far less profitable. So government has, in effect, made a grand bargain with the insurance companies. Force healthy people to pay premiums. Yes, they knew there would be a trade-off; they’d have to take some unhealthy people. But, contrary to the cheerleaders for Obamacare, giving these people insurance via subsidization on the part of the healthy part of the population is not synonymous with paying directly for HEALTH CARE. As anybody who has had regular experience with a health insurance company can attest, read the fine print of the policy. It doesn’t follow that you’ll get the health care provision you assumed you would receive when you were paying those expensive monthly health insurance premiums.

source

Why the requirement?

It's a pretty obvious way to expand coverage, for one thing. Also, it would help bring in a flood of new customers for health insurers, including healthy young people who might not need much health care.

For insurance companies, those new customers would balance out the losses they would incur by ending the practice of denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, something the measure outlaws.

And many people would not be buying coverage purely on their own; Uncle Sam would help them. The bookend to the individual mandate is a federal subsidy to purchase insurance that reaches deep into the middle class.

source

"We need to look at this as a win for consumers as well. Yes, it'll be a win for the insurance companies, but I don't think we're gonna wind up with the insurance companies walking away [and] winning the whole ball game. If we don't do anything right now, that's what will happen. They'll win everything... I was distraught when I saw what happened, what I saw the Senate voting on. But then I realized - you know, I studied a lot of these efforts over the past many years to get reform - [that] often we've come short because we've tried to get the perfect, and we've never been able to get anything as a consequence... We need to have a foundation, and this may seem to be not an adequate foundation for a lot of people, but there are more than 50 million people in this country who don't have insurance... Wouldn't you rather, and I think wouldn't most Americans rather, that we have something to start from rather than starting from scratch the next time? It's very hard to build up to doing this in the first place... I'm frankly pretty amazed that we're getting this close to passing something."

from Wendell Potter


A sister who has always voted Republican was just telling me that she is disappointed in the HCB, because after being on private health insurance for years, she has been on Medicare for a year, finds it superior to any prior insurance and wants to see it available for every citizen. In fact, she says that now that she is retired, she just might devote her time to help get Medicare for Everyone.

If polled, she would say she is against the bill, because it doesn't go far enough towards single payer!