Dianne Black - Republican from Tennessee feels insurers should be ableto deny coverage for children based on health histories.

The crazies are out in force these days, aren't they?  No area more so than on the in the health care reform bill. This tea party movement fundamentalist - and a former nurse no less -clearly lacks the basic understanding about what insurance is supposed to be.  She was particularly concerned that insurance companies not be required to ensure children regardless of their health care history.

Health care reform is about covering everyone - not just healthy...

Oh my goodness…where do you begin on something like this?  The purpose of health insurance is to cover people when they are sick.  They pay into the system when well in the hopes that they will lose money.  To win in the insurance lottery means that you lose in the health lottery.  I don't know about you, but I would rather lose in the insurance lottery than cash in with a heart transplant.  In that way, the healthy pay for the sick.  Which is why the requirement to purchase health insurance is the lynchpin of health care reform.  We need a large enough pool of healthy people to cover the sick.  Since this same sort of mentality believes that a required opt-in is "unconstitutional" she automatically consigns children who were born with health issues to a lifetime of struggling to get treatment.

Insurers need to be required to insure and not sell snake oil...

Insurers should not be allowed to opt-out if they wish to remain in the insurance business.  That's what regulation is all about.  Insurance industries, in particular, need to be regulated because the service they provide puts them at odds with the public interest. You have to FORCE THEM to do the right thing.  If you don't, then people have what whistleblower Wendell Potter refers to as junk plans that nothing better than an expensive form of snake oil.

Is the for-profit health insurance industry truly viable?

As for the insurers - If they can not be profitable while providing the service that they are in business to perform - then they are not a viable industry in their present form.  That fact might be a powerful argument for creating a public option or at restructuring the model from one where allegiance to the stockholder is placed so far beyond service to the consumer that the service itself is rendered useless.

On a personal note, it was just announced that my premiums will reset next month up 32% from the previous year.  The claim is that they can't be profitable without these massive hikes.   Which again raises questions about the viability of the model.   However,  I find that rather hard to believe as the profits for health care insurers continue to soar - recession no withstanding...

© 2011 - Ruthmarie G. Hicks - http://www.therobberbaroneconomy.com - All rights reserved.