Friday, February 12, 2010

Health insurers take heat for rise in profits - latimes.com

Health insurers take heat for rise in profits - latimes.com

The five biggest companies covered 2.7 million fewer people last year but earned 56% more...


Is there any living, breathing human who doesn't think our health care system is broken?

Basically, these companies kill people to retain a few profit dollars to sink into Wall Street so they can pay their CEOs/board-members/institutiona-investors more. Fewer expenditures to pay to the dropped means more money for the already-wealthy. The already wealthy pay capital gains rates on this largesse instead of the income rate that most of us pay. They reward a few for being wealthy instead of making it possible for more to become secure through their work.

This is the legacy of a corporate coup de etat in the United States, and three decades of people working against their self interest by voting idealogues into office who have destroyed any sense of this country being a meritocracy.

If you fancy yourself a revolutionary tea party libertarian freedom-seeker - look, even superficially into this. We've been had. The corporations are killing you, and have each and every one of your federal legislators in their pocket.

The wars of choice and welfare for the wealthy of the last administration, pumping billions into US and foriegn companies to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and to give tax breaks to the wealthy few while we are in a deficit situation, are simple examples. And shamefully, many who call our current administration socialist and question our President's citizenship supported these shameful policies.

We already pay for nearly a third of all medical care in the US, and we overpay by up to 30%. Health care is a vital national economic, security, and moral issue, and to not fix this is criminal, and works against the security of each American.

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