- When the White House or Democrats in Congress talk about
health care reform, and about wanting to preserve the central role of the
private insurance industry in health care, it pays to look at just what
it is that they they're so anxious to preserve.
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- According to
the Health and Human Service's department's National Health Expenditures
report, private insurers will pay out $854 billion in medical claims for
health insurance policyholders this year. That represents about one-third
of the nation's estimated $2.5-trillion medical care bill for this year.
But that's not the whole story. The premiums paid for those claims payments
will total $1.2 trillion, which includes $179 billion in "administrative"
costs (21% or over $1 out of every $5 dollars spent on health care) and
another 150 billion in profits (a tidy 15% return). That is money that
was paid out in premiums by individuals and by employers (who every
year are shifting more of the cost of health coverage onto employees).
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- A big part
of that $179 billion you and your employer pay for insurance company "administrative
expenses" goes to fund private "death panels" whose job,
as insurance company whistleblower Wendell Potter has testified in Congress,
to deny coverage to sick policyholders.
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- And that $179
billion wasted on administration (Medicare, a federally-run program, only
devotes 4% of costs to administration by way of comparison), isn't all.
Doctors, hospitals and pharmacies also spend a similar sum on administrative
expenses, much of it devoted to fighting to get paid by those same insurance
companies. How many of us have spent hours struggling over claims
forms, and getting signatures from physicians in order to get reimbursed
for care, or on the phone arguing with insurance company "customer
service" people on the phone? Doctors, hospital administrators and
pharmacists do the same thing. That's why your doctor's office has such
a large staff of people who aren't there to take your pulse or blood pressure-just
to work with paper.
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- For the rest of this story, please go to: 'http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
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