Under sharp questioning from SCC Commissioner Theodore Morrison, Braly declined to say that her company would pass on efficiency savings to customers by lowering health insurance premiums.
See? That’s a part of the reason why health insurance premiums are so high. The quote comes from this article, which appeared in The Virginian Pilot. It seems that as a part of its agreement to purchase Trigon, the SCC required that the purchaser, Wellpoint, Inc., keep certain services in Virginia. Now that company wants to move the operations out of state, or even overseas, in an effort to improve its bottom line.
Let me guess: Angela Braly, the president and chief executive of Wellpoint, gets a bonus based on the net bottom line.
“We have an obligation to fix the health care system. We have an obligation to provide better services at lower cost.”
Obligation to whom, Ms. Braly? That was a rhetorical question, by the way. I know who your obligation is to: the shareholders.
That’s right. Once these companies went thru the demutualization process, going from policyholder-owned to publicly traded, the focus shifted from the policyholders to the shareholders. The bigger question is who at these companies is looking out for the policyholders?
That would be no one.
As long as profits are driving the health care system, it can’t be fixed. We are beyond the time for needing some form of universal health care.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
MB,
Do you actually read what you write, and I am the one that is stupid!
Who cares who built the school or did the research, that has nothing to do with how I paid for college, not the government! Yes I did everything on my own. You were probably one of those kids whose parents paid for everything and you still complained you didn’t get enough!
Please explain to me how Anon pointed out I received my own public funded benefits! Lets see, I paid for college myself, I worked through college to pay for my own things and I have health insurance.
I am sorry I am not out of work and not complaining about health insurance. It must hurt for you to hear people actually doing things for themselves!
And all of those evil liberal suppositions are not lies, you clearly are making my point with your uninformed posts.
I’m the stupid one, don’t you read what your health insurance covers. And you are wrong, I am in the insurance business and there are not HUGE qualitative differences in the sort of care you can get.
Heh. Thanks for playing.
Just so you understand that everyone is “techniquely” entitled to treatment. Yes. Even illegal aliens are as well. I will submit accessibility may be the issue, but anyone who requires health related services has the opportunity under the present system in Virginia to request for a “code” for hardship at places like MCV Hospitals in Richmond. Once you have been indentified as requiring a code and are granted it your care I believe goes on like everyone elses.
I think you should review the systems again MB. I think that once you reference populations with numbers cared for versus the extensive periods of deferral before treatment by a specialist you will find that it is you who are in error. I mean no disrespect to you and regret you and to endure your situation but did you or di you not choice the HMO option for your insurance. There is an accountibility issue here as well with people not being educated to the very kind of system they are getting. HMO, Key Care programs etc there is confusion indeed and maybe there should be some sort of uniformity I will admit. The issue remains that Americans regardless of the quality of care will not stand for having to wait for it. They will not wait months for an appointment or examination because a system mandates where or who they need to be seeing. Fact remains there is still no choice by the consumer.
And by the way if the European systems are so well run and efficient why then are large numbers of medical personnel coming to the US to work at so many of our large hospitals and at the same time places like GB are allowing eight doctors we now know are suspected of terrorist activities brought in there to join that system with very questionable training and professional experience to treat its citizens.
The US trains and degrees the largest number of doctors in the world hands down. I wonder what a socialistic system like universal health will do to the collective medical community when the government guts the free market system and begins mandating services and fee structures. While it all sounds great in reducing pork in the industry, I would expect that should this take root that companies like HCA, one of the largest employers in Central Virginia or Bon Secours will be reducing costs by by of personnel and services in order to operate in that environment. Oh wait the government will subsidize those operations I forgot, just like Europe.
This is from comments I made earlier on vbdems. Sorry in advance this is so long. I have a lot of sad stories on this subject, way too many to share. But let me tell you, none of us are safe. We may believe we have health insurance, but we are disabused of that notion precisely when we need it most, the point at which we become seriously ill. That’s when it shrinks, disappears, becomes as much of a red-tape nightmarish all-consuming bureaucratic burden as a help. People go into bankruptcy. They lose houses, family, their grip on life. They get tossed aside, because our culture does not value the disabled, the sick or the dying as much as we say.
My sister, age 47, has stage IV cancer. She had cancer once before, four years ago. Last fall, a second cancer appeared with a vengeance, throughout her bones and in several organs. We will never know, but more importantly, SHE will never know, what part health insurance delays and denials and lack of coverage for the routine tests her doctor recommended played in this occurrence.
The short version: after a relatively brief bout with cancer, from which she had apparently recovered, the only insurance she could keep was very expensive COBRA coverage, and then continuation and then pool coverage, costing over $3000 A MONTH, with huge, huge co-pays. She and her family hung on, paying those huge premiums for very substandard insurance, for three years. Of necessity, she began to pick and choose which tests to undergo, which doctors to see, because of the mounting costs of ongoing cancer screening and the staggering monthly health insurance premiums. When the new cancer was discovered, her husband had just taken a new job, and she was a month away from full coverage under his new health plan. She was planning to see all the recommended doctors and finish all her recommended tests as soon as the new health insurance kicked in (she had an appointment for the day after the insurance became effective), but she never got that far. Over the course of a month, she became progressively more ill, until she finally could not walk, and had to be hospitalized. That’s when her doctors discovered advanced cancer throughout her bones and other organs.
Thank God, her husband now has better coverage, but he is unable to change jobs, even to adjust his schedule to care for his seriously ill wife. They are struggling with thousands and thousands in unpaid bills, hoping they can get their kids through high school and college and still keep the house. Meanwhile, the pile of bills on the dining room table keeps growing, requiring as much attention as their two kids, his job, and her many needs. At a time when he should be concentrating on his wife and his children, my brother-in-law spends hours a week juggling medical and insurance paperwork. They look forward to the time in 2009 when her Medicare will finally kick in, if she’s still with us.
If my sister lives, she will always blame this nightmare on the tests she didn’t have, the doctors she didn’t see. She will always wonder whether the second cancer could have been caught earlier, before it spread through her bones and organs. If she dies, the rest of us will be left to wonder for her.
The irony? My sister is a lawyer-turned-divinity-student, who specialized in health care law for many years. Her husband is a medical administrator. They worked hard, raised their kids well, saved their money, did everything right, and still wound up in this situation. Throughout this ordeal, they had insurance, first good insurance, then bad insurance, then terrible (and terribly expensive) insurance. If this could happen to them, it could happen to anybody.
So every time I hear some fool spout off about personal responsibility, I want to yell. Every time I hear some uncaring ignoramous pontificate about how health care is not the responsibility of the government, I want to throw something. People do not understand, and do not care to understand, how serious this problem is until it affects them, or their families. We are all playing a game of Russian roulette with our health, our families, our finances, and our lives.
And J. Scott, I am quite familiar with the care available to indigent people, and your assumptions are completely incorrect. People don’t get treated if they don’t have insurance. Some don’t get treated even if they do have insurance. Many don’t get treated adequately. Some lose their insurance because they’re … SICK! So, no, they’re not ABLE to get a job, and stand on their own two feet, rlewis. So all this rhetoric about self-sufficiency comes to absolutely nothing. When it happens to you, you will care.
Universal health care, what a nice name! But there never can be any such thing. Everything has a cost, and somebody has to pay. At some point, we run out of money.
Limited resources force us to set priorities. In the free market, this prioritization occurs automatically. It is the relationship between supply and demand. As customers of a free market medical care system, we all have a right to health care. We get what we are willing and able to pay for. Unfortunately, we do not have such a system.
Government control is already rampant. Even the “evil” corporation is a legal fiction, and the fact we go to our employers for health care is artifact of the tax system. As a practical matter, why should we want our employer to choose our health care provider? Why do we need a go between. To save money? Nonsense. This system is about power and influence that favors big companies.
Good medical care is a personal, not an industrial process. There are some opportunities economies of scale, but they have their limits. However, when our employers chooses our “medical provider”, we lose the opportunity to make a personal choice.
Fortunately, we do not yet have a completely socialist system. The priorities of a socialist system are determined solely by “wise” bureaucrats lead by even “wiser” political leaders. Under such a system, medical care is rationed according to one’s political influence.
Power corrupts. Our politicians can promise to be incorruptible, but they remain ambitious power seeking human beings. When we give them more power than necessary, we do ourselves and them no favors. Every time we give them more responsibility and commensurate authority, we further tempt our elected leaders. We also make it more difficult to control them.
Consider how awfully hard it already is to get rid of an incumbent. Even obvious villain can reelected.
If you think commercial medical care is defective, then I suggest you work to support nonprofit organizations. Commercial medicine and nonprofit medicine coexist quite nicely. It is government-run medicine that demands monopoly power and all the attendant evils that come with monopoly power.
If you think some people need charity, I encourage you contribute your surplus funds to a charitable organization. If nothing else, you will know where your money is going, and I will know where my money is.
Please do not advocate socialized medicine. That is an evil we do not need.
Universal healthcare. So we can let the same bureaucrats who spent 8million sate tax dollars to change the name and Logo of MCV to VCU Healthcare Systems.
While the doctors who make presentations outside the area have to include formerly known a MCV, when talking about VCU Healthcare System.
Sounds like a real good idea.
What do Canadians say about Universal Healthcare in the USA? If Americans let that happen where will they and the rest of the world go for quality healthcare?
Hooo, boy. A lot has happened here today.
First, the British and Canadian systems are bad. The British system is the best Pakistan can provide. There is no incentive to become a doctor in Britain or Canada. Many doctors come here to practice.
Vivian does point out one very important discrepancy — that insurance paid for by companies is deductible by the companies, but insurance purchased by individuals generally is not.
The second problem is continuation of coverage. If I get into a car accident tomorrow, and change my coverage Monday, the policy in force when I had the accident has to pay. Similarly, the policy that was in force when VAB’s sister was first diagnosed with cancer should have to pay for the treatment, even if she cancelled that coverage the day after she was diagnosed.
That would solve the problem of pre-existing conditions, because pre-existing conditions would be covered by the prior policy.
Now, would universal coverage make our companies more competitive? I doubt it. Someone has to pay for the coverage. If we have UHC, the companies will have to pay higher taxes, as will the employees. As it is, the employees are paid less than they would be if they had to purchase their own insurance.
UHC is not free. Nor is it particularly effective. Coverage is now denying surgery to people in England who smoked within the last four weeks. Soon, I suspect, people will be denied service for their weight.
Finally, the major reason drugs are cheap in Canada is that they are subsidized. If a lot of Americans buy their drugs from Canada (essentially stealing from the Canadian people) then their government will be forced to stop the subsidies. They can tax their own to subsidize their own, but they cannot afford to subsidize us, too.
Thank you, VAB.
And J. Scott, I think you misread my comment. I don’t have a single complaint about my own coverage – I got every single thing I needed. It was others who got *much* less. And *that* is what I am pissed about.
Citizen Tom, once again, is being purposely obtuse. If there’s ever been a market failure, it’s healthcare. But I’m not going to engage him much on this subject, as I think he’s a fundamentally dishonest person.
Anon E. Mouse, despite her monkey see monkey do act on the British system, does raise a couple of genuinely useful suggestions (i.e., continuation of coverage, and deductibility of insurance costs), but in the scheme of things, they don’t accomplish nearly enough.
VB Dems:
I think you should stick to a debate with the others. I am saddened by the situation you refered. The fact remains it is the law for people to be treated, especially in the case you mention regarding cancer. There are quite a few patients right no at Massesy Cancer and on the general surg floor with absolutely no insurance. We tax payers pay for those services for those ill and rightfully so.
I know right now of two families with no insurance who have children be treated right now with leukemia. Our system may be broken in places but it certainly isn’t in the area of care. I regret your situation and am not sure why if she was out of work with no income she was did not seek a financial code at the hospital for her condition. Thats what they are for. These things I know are not advertised but are available and are required by law that those who need treatment get it. That was my point. Those people giving her the run around need and should be held accountable if they contribute to her suffering. On the other hand, if a patient if deemed financially ineligible I guess they are saying that the person should have had insurance but chose not to get in as an individual. Again, the situation saddens me and will pray for her but universal is not the answer.
MB – Obtuse? Here are the definitions of obtuse.
1. not quick or alert in perception, feeling, or intellect; not sensitive or observant; dull.
2. not sharp, acute, or pointed; blunt in form.
3. (of a leaf, petal, etc.) rounded at the extremity.
4. indistinctly felt or perceived, as pain or sound.
Purposely obtuse?
Anyway, I will try to be less obtuse. Let’s start by noting that no system is perfect. The basic problem with a market driven medical system is that it cannot keep people from dying, and I agree that is a fairly serious problem.
Certainly, there are also fairness and other issues with any market driven solution. Inevitably, some regulation is required. Nonetheless, a socialist system (government owned and operated) or a UHC system (which is virtually a socialist system) also poses fairness as well as efficiency issues. In fact, any system that relies upon such intense government control is simply asking for graft and political corruption.
Further, socialist systems, which are almost always centrally managed, deprive people people of reasonable options. Whereas competition force innovation and a customer centric orientation, government-run operations have to be extremely well funded to provide similar levels of customer service.
Look at our education system. That is your prototypical government service industry. Is that your idea of fairness for others who get much less? Then you have to be joking. Do the upper classes and the poor send their children to the same schools? Of course not. In fact, the rich send their precious children to private schools.
Why are we stuck with the public school system? The argument for it is made on behalf of the poor. To make sure the system fair for the poor, everyone has to go to the same schools. Then everyone schemes to find a way to avoid the worse schools; those are left for poor. In the end, we just waste billions of dollars trying to make government-run schools work?
And why does the public school system work so poorly? The system is a monopoly. Instead of serving its customers who have no other choice (particularly if they are poor), it serves the political constituencies that feed off of it.
I do find it slightly amusing that after the Walter Reed mess, the socialists want that system for EVERYONE.
Under our current system, because health care is tied to our employers, it disappears along with our jobs when we become disabled. Medicare takes 2 years. That’s the problem. This doesn’t affect the poor, who can get Medicaid, as long as they are eligible (you’d be surprised how many times they’re not eligible). It affects the middle class. COBRA doesn’t solve it because of the costs involved. People who have a great deal of money can simply pay for their own care, but of course they have insurance. And you would be absolutely shocked by how much health care really costs at the time you need it most. I really hope that this doesn’t happen to any of you. But that’s my point. The way the system is currently structured, it could happen to anybody.
You can talk all day about the free market vs. socialized medicine. But we have so interfered in one way or another in the health care field that normal market forces do not work.
And no, people do not get care, or do not get adequate care. They are just getting pushed off a cliff. And it happens every day. And yes, lives are literally at stake.
Student loans ARE government subsidized. So everyone who has had one needs to be fully aware that they didn’t make it entirely on their own. You have had a “government handout”. Some government handouts are just more artfully disguised than others.
“People don’t get treated if they don’t have insurance.” Just trying to clarify – VAB – do you mean sick people don’t get treated at all? I’m not sure if that’s what you are saying, however, if it is, you are completely wrong. And I know that for a fact. Perhaps you are just refering to generic, non-emergency treatment. If so, then the following doesn’t really apply:
I was taken to the hospital by ambulance in severe pain. I left home without my wallet. I had no proof of insurance and since I didn’t have proof, they didn’t write anything down. After I got home from the hospital – 3 days later after surgery – I got a nice call from the hospital. They tried to put me in contact with several city and private agencies that would help me pay my healthcare costs. They had agencies that could help me with 80% of the costs and I would have to pay the remaining 20% and they said they could work out a payment plan. I explained that I did have insurance and sent them a copy of the card the next day. My insurance company was billed, and then I paid my 20% in one payment – no payment plan was offered.
Free government health care has its limits. Suppose you have a toothache, and you cannot afford a dentist. If this toothache becomes abscessed, then you can go to the emergency room for an antibiotic.
Free government health care comes with expensive government rules. The rules say what to do about an infection. They do not cover fixing the tooth.