Trust isn't tangible, or is it? The consequences of mistrust are easier to identify many times than the consequences of trust. Knowing that our health services industry isn't working, what role does mistrust play in the reality of how our system functions (or doesn't function)?
Keep it simple today and try to go to the BEST source for reading and assessing what is going on. For consideration of the money motivation clearly indicated in the actions of lobbyists on behalf of insurers and physicians, if you really doubt it go to the websites of their lobbyists, AHIP and the AMA.
So they want to make money, who cares? Because the legitimate goal of wanting to earn a living does NOT justify double talking consumers into support of certain actions through threat, misrepresentation, and the flood of the marketplace and government with phony reasons for more beneficial legislation.
AHIP on its advocacy and issues section includes commentary on legislative mandates, which it first explains are requirements by governments that health insurance plans cover certain conditions. AHIP naturally is AGAINST these mandates. Their number one reason is that to maintain affordable rate of health insurance, insurers should not be forced by law to cover certain conditions. Can you trust this statement? Of course. Can you trust insurance companies who have POLICY STATEMENTS explaining that they don't want to be expected to insure (cover the risk of medical services for particular illnesses) because it is expensive? NO. Insurers who keep the cost of a policy down by not insuring are ultimately selling less for more. Health insurance premiums have gone up and up and up. As insurers limit what they cover, instead of these savings being passed onto consumers, they are reabsorbed by increases in salary, lobbying and every other self-motivated activity in which health insurers participate. The philosophy expressed creates UNTRUSTWORTHINESS as a hallmark of what we're purchasing because insurers have flat out stated that they want to sell policies that cover less as a means of saving money. So what can you do? Keep it simple today and write your Congressman SUPPORTING legislative mandates for health insurers. Insurers who stop insuring in order to keep their rates down cut into the protection consumers desire when they purchase health insurance.
As for our physician friends, they are a even slicker in their presentations. The AMA advocacy page explains current lobbying efforts to reduce liability for medical malpractice, you know, that less than 25% of the time that physicians are held liable for mistakes they make. The information explains that consumers should support these limits To preserve patients' access to care and the website promises that the AMA will continue to lead an aggressive, multi-year campaign to reduce medical liability premiums:
" At the federal level, the AMA is fighting Congress for MICRA-like reforms, including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical liability cases
" At the state level, AMA is providing resources to support similar state reforms.
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For those consumers, and there are many, who support limits on medical malpractice recoveries and therefore premiums, why did you support them? Was it because you assumed it would lower YOUR physician costs? The AMA clearly identifies what benefit is in it for you: Preservation of your access to medical care. The same reasoning used by physicians to get their Medicare/Medicaid pay increases: Give us money or we'll stop practicing medicine regarding at least some specified group of people. What other job gets to threaten this way? Union employees who go on "strike" and we see where the union-type negotiations have gotten us and unions (consider the car industry). The threat of "strike" cannot continually be used as a legitimate justification to give any group what they want ESPECIALLY since the governmental response to consumer strike, where consumers say they won't buy health insurance unless the industry begins insuring at an affordable rate have resulted in governmental MANDATES that we buy insurance or face a penalty charge.
Keep it simple today and make the same demands of health insurers and physicians that are made of consumers: Watch your money instead of merely raising prices to pay for your over-spending, stick to what you are supposed to provide, insurers-insurance and physicians medical services and stop using threats of more charges (insurers) or strike (physicians) as a means of strong-arming the American public into compliance with your own greed.
