I'm sorry you were sorry.
I think your figure of 25-33% of “collection” in your original post is exaggerated. But, I think you are correct that the Ins. co. do possibly try to show better LRs. Taking NY, my home state as an example, showing 75/80% LRs and as shown in your link (thanks again) they did force Oxford (a company I have had trouble with) refunding premiums and possibly rejecting premium increases. (By all means companies like Oxford should be nailed, but not all companies are equal.) My point is there are bad insurance companies and bad state insurance departments.
I have been an advocate for a national insurance regulator as the costs that filing policies and regulating licensees, and all the other costs just get passed on to consumers. Although I worry that an agency like the SEC would be created.
So, I agree in general with you.
This is too big a problem (HCR) to be playing the blame game and calling everyone crooks or not interested in other people's welfare. Too much hype just delays constructive study and action on the biggest problem that I know of. Would you agree that we should try to do the job right for the initial law (fixes of course will be needed) and taking our precarious fiscal condition into consideration?

Surveys of actual state regulatory commissions (rather than code-named bloggers) find the 84% figure to be an industry-wide public relations figment, and a less-than-75% figure to be accurate. The industry refuses to cooperate, calling this information “proprietary.”

http://www.newamerica.net/blog/new-health-dialo…

http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/medical-…

Or, you can listen to some blogger named carneades2009 regurgitating talking points from “United Healthcare, Humana, Aetna, Coventry and Wellpoint” (Wellpoint posted a $2.7 billion profit last year, BTW — few other companies did quite that well. You might recall we had a worldwide recession . . . ).
See the original at http://www.scribd.com/doc/24599363/Health-Insur… and scroll to the bottom and read the author's own 'About' statement.

These numbers are academic, anyway. The bottom-line reality is that Americans spend far more for health care than any other nation and we get much poorer results (for mortality and wellness) than any modern country.

Do some actual research from trusted authorities, don't just hear what you want to hear.

This makes it ridiculously difficult for America to compete in any marketplace because so much of our money is wasted on the absurd profits posted by health insurance companies, and the self-serving policies they enforce with total impunity.

Anthem Blue Cross just raised their rates by 39%. Do you really think medical costs went up 39% last year, while inflation was flat? Or do you think they merely want to lock in an obscene profit margin?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/…

This industry has used their money and power over a period of decades to splinter regulations among 50 states. Do you have any idea how unnecessarily complicated it is to have 50 distinctly separate forms, regulations, laws, employee training and education, processes and procedures? Have you priced the rarefied, customized, extremely low-volume software they need to simply do their job because they have 50 different procedures?

Why would anyone make their own business so complicated? Because they can run roughshod over any single state legislature and buy their way (we call it “re-election campaign contributions”) to nearly anything they want. There is zero federal regulation, and they like it that way, because it's much harder to buy a US Congressman than to buy one at the state level (though they've clearly managed to do so).

Today, over $1 out of every $6 Americans spend goes for health care (nearly triple what the British pay). How can we possibly ever compete in this environment?

Do the math; $1 out of every $24 we spend on anything goes to line the pockets of health insurance companies. That's a LOT of money, and it's why they're willing to do ANYTHING to maintain the status quo. We pay, they collect scandalous profits, and we support them with all our might. Wake up!

This isn't capitalism; it's capitalism run amok.

Of course, I realize it is pin the tail on the donkey (health insurance companies)in this HCR climate, but some criticism is overdone.

35% of all personal health care premiums, and
25% of all group health care premiums

and just keep that money for themselves. What's left over (their medical loss ratio) pays for actual health care — doctors, hospitals, drugs, etc. That's right; they consider the money they pay for care as a loss.

If you ran a business, and your accountant kept 1/3 of the total gross revenue as his salary, you'd find a new accountant.

Face it — they're just accountants, cashing and writing checks.

Now you know why the insurance companies like the status quo.

By the way, Medicare does the same job while using around 5% of the gross. Still think the private companies do a better job than the government?

That would be better (perhaps a diagnoses would evolve) than a crafty opportunist with good gag writers in tow.

If the U.S. wants to expand the welfare state, then it is going to have to seal the borders and severely limit immigration.

Of course, if you close down immigraiton, then where will the elites find anyone to work in poorly paid, inner city hospitals. No one who is an elite progressive would ever work there.

Here, I'll give you one statistic: 47% of people making less than $50,000 pay no federal income tax at all.

FICA is not federal income tax. It is not what I was referring to.

FICA is what we commonly refer to as the Social Security tax.

Are you saying you don't want to pay FICA? Why do you hate old people so much?

There's no way this group of clown Dems can currently manage to fold FICA into the federal income tax, as well as make it more progressive, fortunately. (Imagine them “running away” with such a tax strategy.) These are the kinds of clowns who would “solve” our entitlement problems merely by laws making appropriations for 100% of the program expenditures mandatory by federal law. Poof! Wave that magic wand. We're actually lucky they didn't attempt federal health care takeover incrementalist strategies that were more ambitious, like absorbing Medicaid into Medicare. They'll probably not be satisfied with just letting the Bush income tax reductions expire, but will try adding progressivity as well as a host of new “fees,” “charges,” and other taxes. I doubt they'll be so crazy as to try a wealth tax, at least. That won't come probably for another 10-20 years.

Expect entitlement reform to consist merely of lifting the FICA cap on incomes. If Social Security benefits aren't lifted, it's ugly outright theft (a tax grab). Whether or not benefits are adjusted, the start of Social Security deficits will only be delayed a few years — should be less than ten. Lifting or ending the FICA cap is no budget or entitlement solution, I hope you realize. It helps, but merely forestalls the inevitable for a few years; it is almost insignificant.

It is political. Anyone who has lived there (I grew up there and lived several years afterward there), or has visited it with their mind open, or studies what is happening there understands this.

“No so. Healthcare is part and parcel of the greater economic problem and can't be separated.”

I was assuming too much — sorry.

“Health care reform is a separate issue from the Sarah Palin phenomenon,” which is what this thread was about (which subject? they are separate).

Health care reform certainly is distinct but is not separate from the real protest, which is Big Government in general.

You must not have been here during the 2006 elections.

It took 6 years of lies, wars, budget deficits, torture, wiretapping, signing statements and a shitty economy to get those independents to get their heads out of their asses and realize what a disaster Bush was… And while I have not seen any polls, I am pretty sure that those independents are probably not Teabaggers today…

You must not have been here during the 2006 elections.

Health care is a separate issue. – DLS

No so. Healthcare is part of the greater economic problem and can't be separated.

weltanschauung

Great word! Of course I had to look it up, being one of those sadly monolingual folks…

We must Used some of the Stimulus Funds, that will Enabled us to Used HIT Solutions and Training, to CONTAINED our Annual National Healthcare Costs. This Investment will Enabled New Jobs Creation and Economic Recovery.

Healthcare IT, we need to Coordinate our EHR/EMR/PHR Efforts with Organizations such as HL-7, HIMSS, IHE, e-Health Initiative, and to have a Harmonized Inter-State Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security Laws, to Protect Individual's Electronic Health Records/Electronic Medical Records/Personal Health Records.

Proper Deployment of HIT Solutions and Training will Increased Productivity, Efficiency, and provide us with a Cost Savings of around 20-30% of our Annual National Healthcare Expenditures (2008, $2.3 Trillions).

The ENGINE of Economic Growth in this 21st Century is “Broadband.” We can start by, Deploying a pure Packet-based, All Optical/IP, Multi-Service National TRANSPORT Network Infrastructure, using All Optical Ethernet throughout this National “Network of Networks.” This will Connect All Optical Islands, Nationwide.

The Investment in this National “Network of Networks”, in addition to New Jobs Creation and Economic Recovery,can also Serve as a Business Driver for: e-Commerce, e-Education, e-Healthcare, Social Networking, Entertainment, etc.

This Investment is like the Investments made in the past, in ERA, TVA, and the National Transportation Inter-State Highways,which Increased Productivity and our GDP.

Please See: http://www.gkquoquoi.blogspot.com for Summary Deployment Plan, for the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).

Gadema Korboi Quoquoi
President & CEO
COMPULINE INTERNATIONAL, INC.

Here we have a President who is sincerely trying to help us ALL as individuals and you want to form a rally, this Presidents spending is to better everyone in the future to come. Bush spent 8 years in office truly making everyone's life worst.

People are SO STUPID and don't have a clue!!!! WAKE UP PEOPLE! Republicans are nothing but a group of RACIST individuals who do care NOTHING about the middle class, they would rather continue to see thousands of people die each year from not having proper healthcare over working together to come to a solution, than to come to a solution and to help the American people.

REPUBLICANS don't have a plan, the can care less about the common American people! There only plan is to ensure President Obama is not successful in his agenda.