Last week Blue Shield announced they would not be raising premiums. They got notice on the front page of the L.A. Times and looked to be trying to make things better in light of our current health care crisis in the U.S. But, reading between the lines, it turns out that this premium freeze only affects the private pay policies. The Employer sponsored policies will go up. Private pay policies only make up 8% of the health insurance policies in the U.S. The other 92% are employer sponsored. So it looks like Blue Shield isn't really giving up much but still got a lot of positive corporate press.
Meanwhile the health insurance premiums that basically double every three to four years, cover less and become increasingly more difficult for people to obtain continue to spiral out of control. The medical cartel is doing just fine. Insurance, Big Pharma, and certain physician specialties (unfortunately, me not being one of them :>)) are doing great. But Americans are going broke. 75% of all bankruptcies in the U.S. are over health care bills and 2/3 of those HAD INSURANCE.
People worried about the Health Care Reform Bill. Like an abused child reaching out to their abusive parent as the child protective services are taking them away, Americans fell prey to rhetoric like: "death panels" "higher taxes" and the likes. Well, I for one can pay extra taxes if I don't have to pay insurance premiums. To the tune of $12,000 a year to be exact. That's exactly what I pay for health insurance for my family, and that's with a $10,000 deductible!!
Death panels? They are already here. The insurance companies routinely deny coverage for what they claim are "investigative services". Yet, they pay for other procedures that are proven not to work. A girl at my daughters' high school was denied a liver operation all her doctors recommended, but could not get approval for. She died the day after the insurance company was finally beaten into submission.
Read between the lines.
