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Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
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The Threat Of Compulsory Insurance |
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by Watchdog
(No verified email address) |
05 Apr 2006
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The precedent of compelling drivers to purchase private auto insurance is bad enough, but one can opt out. One doesn't have to drive, they say.
The only way to opt out of compulsory health insurance, however, would be to die. |
A small, sinister, April 5 Inquirer item was headlined...."In Mass., universal health insurance?"
(Note the interesting question mark. Even the paper 'raises its eyebrows'.)
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/14264550.htm
The item reports the alarming news that, in Massachussets, unless one is really poor, one will be compelled by tax penalties etc to patronize private health insurance businesses! This is no one's idea of Universal Health Insurance...and it sure isn't Single Payer. It's more like Universal Compulsory Customer.
Do Bay Staters realize that this also would compel them to pay for insurer advertising, CEO bonuses, redundant administrations, campaign contributions, corporate jets and headquarters maintenance, legal suits, conventions, etc? Do they realize that money spent on such non-health-related things is money taken from their health care? Do they ask what possible Public Interest justification there is for compelling such support of non-health related things?
Do they also realize that they would be compelled to simultaneously supply funds for insurers' Wall Street investments in businesses the insurance customers may not even know about or that they may disapprove of for any number of moral, religious, political, or business reasons?
If their health insurer is Cigna, for instance, they may be inadvertently and unknowingly supplying millions of dollars in investment money for top cigarette manufacturers....if Cigna hasn't divested since the PBHP report on this scandal. Would our "anti-smoking" friends agree to help support Big Cig in this way?
(Same applies to Prudential, MetLife, Aetna, Travelers, etc.)
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2000/march/insurers_are_major_i.php
That a state may compel patronage of any private industry is what Mussolini preferred to call Corporatism---at its worst. It raises serious Constitutional questions regarding Freedom of Speech by requiring speaking, with words and/or money, to insurers or any entity.
This is a serious assault on the idea of Single Payer...of getting private insurers out of the way of a Public Health System. Not much is being done to stop this because, for one reason, many like the sound of "universal insurance". If private insurers co-opt that term, we need to change our rhetoric. The distinction must now be clearly between Corporate Insurance and Public Insurance.
*******
Regarding the insurer investment point, this affects many interest groups...groups that must consider joining in opposition to such programs.
Peace Activists could be second-handedly investing in military contractors if they were not told where their health insurer placed investments...or if there were no insurers that did NOT invest in such industries.
Environmentalists could be 2nd-handedly investing in Exxon, Mountaintop removal mining or polluting chemicals and so forth.
Prisoner Rights activists could be supplying investment loot to the Prison Industry and its suppliers.
Organics Activists could be unwittingly supporting Big Chlorine, Pesticides, Agri-business etc.
Critics of Corporate Media could be economically supporting Corporate Media.
And, Investors in Business A could be counter-productively funding Business B, their competitor.
And so on. |
See also:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/14264550.htm
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2000/march/insurers_are_major_i.php
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