Dan Keller's Nursing, Health Policy & Healthcare Technology Blog

Legislation not violence

December 13, 2024 -- Violence is never the answer. Frustration with our sick and twisted health insurance industry is understandable -- justified, even. I share it. But violence is never an acceptable response.

The right answer is legislation and a new, progressive tax. This legislation would create a federal agency to be the single payer for healthcare in the USA, and the tax would pay for it.

Everyone hates taxes but this would in fact be a reduction in expenses for Americans. Employers would no longer be the payers for healthcare for employees and would thus add their savings to paychecks, enabling workers to afford the new tax.

Health care costs would come down by 15%-30% (depending upon whose numbers you use) as that much of every health care dollar today is consumed by the bureaucratic overhead of the multi-multi-billion dollar parasitic health insurance industry.

The companies are United Health (whose CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down last week, sparking this controversy), Anthem, Kaiser, Cigna, Humana, and others. All are profitable (despite some being what I term NoPINOs -- non-profit in name only) yet none of them add any value.

The NYT reports: Health Insurance Workers Fearful Amid Public Anger After Slaying of C.E.O.. Yet the employees of these companies are not evil people; the problem is that their work is motivated by perverse incentives. As I have railed elsewhere, they do their job "best" when they deny care, thereby serving their true constituency -- not patients despite claims to the contrary -- but corporate shareholders. This aberration from our public good must be corrected, overcoming powerful entrenched interests.

I firmly believe that a well-regulated capitalism is the preferred economic system, and the legislation for which I call -- establishment of a single payer for healthcare -- would be a salutary improvement to our sick system. Abolish the healthcare insurance industry!

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