Health insurnace companies really deserve the beating they are getting…just for being stupid

If there were bonuses offered for being dumb, executives in health insurance companies would be up there with the wealthiest people in the world (no, despite politically rhetoric they are not there yet).

First we have the WellPoint 39% rate increase in the middle of the health care debate, then we have other insurers withdrawing their rate increase requests because they found errors in their calculations, “simple human errors” in one case we are told.  In light of the fact that every eye in the nation is on health insurance premiums as the cause of all our woes short of war, wouldn’t you think that insurance companies would check their math.  Give me a break; you people deserve to be chastised just for being stupid.

In addition, the insurance industry has done a miserable job of explaining the reality of insurance and why some things are contained in a policy and what they do.  They have said little to the public about rising health care costs and instead have let the public be inundated with stories of insurance company “abuses” and “discrimination”.  They have said nothing in response to charges of interfering between the patient and doctor or taking away the patients right to be in charge of his care. 

Corporate America is noted for doing stupid things and then complaining about new laws and regulations to address the results of those actions.  The case of health insurance companies and health care is a classic (likely to be over shadowed only by BP).

Here is an idea, while the politicians were beating up the insurance industry for higher health care costs via premiums, insurance companies could have pointed out that 70 million Americans enrolled in self-insured plans experience the same high increases in health care costs while many workers in those plans were seeing their payroll deductions rise by double digits – without the existence of health insurance!  Duh? On the other hand, they could also have just pointed to Medicare cost increases, no insurance there.

That’s it, I have tried to explain the facts and realities of insurance, I give up, you are on your own health insurance companies of America. Pssssst, in a few years there will be far fewer of you out there.