Wow you are so right. I get so angry over my insurance company. Some people in another state sued this company for wording contracts in such a confusing way that the people couldn't understand it. Then when they had a claim the insurance co. Came back and said "you are not covered, see you signed this" I had the something happen to me, and it is so unfair. Here they are making tons and tons of mones all the while abusing those who are giving them their money! What are we paying huge premiums for- just to get denied?

 From what I hear of health care provision in the USA, it is scary stuff, and I would probably be dead by now, or responsible for impoverishing my entire family. Sadly our government has now employed a private agency with a remit to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefit. It is not easy to obtain this benefit anyway, and the tactics this company employs leads me to suspect they may have been studying the USA for tips.

 I certainly support the statement. The current system is a travesty of health care. Rather than patients, stockholders are the beneficiaries of health insurance, the insurance companies are in it for the profits, not the patients.

Have you noticed how long you have to sit in a waiting room and how quickly doctors shuffle you along? Insurance companies pay doctors based on each patient they see. They also reward them for limiting the number of diagnostic procedures they recommend for patients. Doctors are put in a difficult position because of the insurance companies. Sometimes the insurance companies prevent physicians from treating patients properly, and the insurance payments force doctors to see patients on an assembly line basis. Many doctors are not comfortable with these tactics.

The current system does not represent a free market. If insurance companies had to compete for business, they might provide better benefits at lower costs. (npr.org) Millions of people in this country are uninsured because they can't afford it, and those who can are frequently denied adequate or life-saving care by some case manager a thousand miles away. (healthcareproblems.org)

Socialized medicine is a threat to doctors as it should be to insurance companies as well. Fewer people would have to purchase private insurance. How would they make their profits? There has to be some serious reform, and soon.

 I support the statement! Yet none of this will happen as long as insurers operate in a perverse market in which their incentives are to make the system, and our care, worse. Here are a mixture of some ideas, several of which have been expounded upon by E. Klein, a journalist with much on the ball for independent media.

First, making the system universal is a must. Insurers cannot compete effectively unless everyone is in the pool. If the healthy can leave -- if they can decide insurance is a bad deal until they get a little sicker and a little older -- then insurers simply will have to compete to attract the healthiest, which means offering the lowest costs, which means insuring the fewest sick people. Bad incentive.

Second-- Can we please stop the cherry picking? This is one of the primary reasons the poor and the ill do not receive the coverage nor the care they need. Insurers shouldn't be allowed to use demographic sub-slicing to cherry-pick the market (i.e., judging individuals based on preexisting histories, use of formulas around age and income and race and region in an effort to identify those who might someday get sick). Insurers should have to offer insurance to anyone who wants it for the same price. No exceptions!!

Now - neither of these works unless the risk is adjusted for insurers to they can remain profitable. For example, the new market system can either reimburse insurers more for taking on sicker patients, --or insurers with particularly healthy pools could pay into a central fund that redistributes to insurance providers with less healthy pools of insured. Whichever method, it has to be as profitable for an insurer to insure a sick person as a healthy one.

Then - I think mandatory benefit floors are a great idea, and one which could compliment the new system incentive wise, and still serve the ill/someday ill... This would mean insurers need to offer a minimum comprehensive amount of coverage, one which none of their plans can dip below in terms of comprehesiveness of coverage. If we didn't require this, insurers could just sell the healthy on plans that don't cover anything (and so are very cheap)-- which we know is just another way of maintaining the helathy on the rolls while not serving the ill and in need.

And let's get the needed information to consumers! It needs to be easy for individuals to compare insurers on plan coverages, price, outcomes, etc. Effort needs to go into putting together an easily accessible system wherein customers can find and compare the plans and coverage and pricing they need.

Finally, allow market competition to do its best for doctors /caregivers, and make the records of care transparent to consumers. Let the market take its best shot at free market competition among the docs, who now will be placed on a more level playing field and still be able to provide the care that the ill requires without being incented to find excuses not to treat the ill adequately or comprehensively because insurance companies are fighting not to treat the sick.

Reform is necessary, not just for our sakes but so the insurers actually can be better, rather than continuing to act as whipping boys for frustrated politicians.

Whatever you think, if you agree the current system isn't working, please write to your senator/congressperson, or meet with them, or call them--- and vote in the election for those who have become educated about healthcare and have consulted with business and healthcare experts on its reform!