On the Broken System of Private Health Insurance

Saw this ABC News segment. It details how Anthem Blue Cross raised premiums by 40% and at the same time the CEO of their owner company, Wellpoint, just got a 50% pay rise to $13 million.

Also here's an excellent TV news segment concerning the broken system of health care in America which the Democratic Party is trying to change but the Republican Party seems determined to protect.

Have you heard that the British public health system is awful?

This segment exposes how a conservative group, Conservatives for Patients' Rights, deceptively used British patients to demonize the British health care system who are actually perfectly happy with the British health system. They were duped, according to this report.

It also exposes how private providers of health insurance make so much money.

"a majority of personal bankruptcies in this country are caused by medical costs. And a majority of those people who are going bankrupt because of their medical costs actually have health insurance." (1:58.)

Clearly the present system is not working. Something is very wrong.

This segment also explores alternative arrangements. The present system is not inevitable. Other countries do things quite differently. And better too.

"Most industrialized countries have single payer or national health care and they spend less, and they have better health outcomes than we do, with our big experiment hoping the private sector will provide." (4:20.)

It also exposes how health insurance companies have been making so much money while so many are left uninsured.

"By the closing years of the George W. Bush administration the number of uninsurured Americans was approaching 50 million. And the CEOs of the ten largest health insurance companies were taking home an average compensation of 11.9 million dollars each every year." (4:43.)