12-27-08, 9:40 am
It is important to include in our thinking about the US Health Care system that private health insurers are often multi-million dollar investors in some of the worst health-damaging industries, cigarette manufacturers most notably, but also tobacco pesticides, pesticides in general, chlorine, polluting smokestack industries, oil, unhealthy foods, mountaintop removal coal mining, and even military weaponry.
Injuries or illnesses caused by those interests may be given insufficient attention or be mis-diagnosed by medical professionals under the economic umbrella of private insurers with massive holdings in those industries.
We see this routinely in the 'smoking' area where no cigarette manufacturer is exposed or condemned for the contamination of most smoking products with pesticide residues, radiation from certain fertilizers, untested and often known toxic non-tobacco additives, burn accelerants, addiction-enhancing substances, chlorine contaminants that produce dioxin in the smoke, and kid-attracting sweets, flavors, aromas, and soothing additives. That is a lot to overlook, especially by those professing expertise in the smoking and health topic.
Private insurers distract from the misdeeds of their investment properties and cast most of the blame onto the unwitting victims, onto non-complicit bar owners and the like, and onto the un-patented, public-domain, natural, and conveniently 'sinful' tobacco plant. To all appearances, insurers do this gross disservice to the public in general, to its own insurance customers, and to the integrity of medical science to protect their investments in the above interests.
Further, private insurers invest in pharmaceuticals (including those that make tobacco pesticides) and other health businesses, thus creating more conflicts-of-interest. Insurers and associated practitioners, etc., have motive and even corporate duty (to shareholders) to favor drugs made by their own investment properties over competing drugs that may be safer, more effective, and cheaper. Insurers may also be lax in assuring the safety of, or reporting problems with, drugs made by its investment properties.
We already know of the 'Sicko' horrors, and the massive waste of revenues inherent in the current system, but this Conflict Area ought be the axe that puts an end to this inherently cruel private insurance industry system.
This certainly ought put the end to the idea of mandatory patronage of such insurers because there is no Public Interest justification for compelling anyone to provide revenues, albeit second-handed, to the insurer's investments, and to the advertising, lobbying, campaign gifts, CEO bonuses, corporate jets and conventions, headquarter amenities, and so forth.
Further yet, the government's compelling of speech (with words and money) by citizens to private insurers may be a violation of the First Amendment.
The only alternative to all of this is a public-funded, public-administered Single Payer system where those unhealthy conflicts will not exist, everyone will be automatically covered, and the public will save around $350 billion a year.
