Dear colleague,
One of the most important features of improved Medicare for All — perhaps its defining feature — is the elimination of the profit motive in health care. For-profit providers, including hospitals, dialysis centers, and nursing homes, have been shown to provide inferior care at inflated prices. There is simply no place for corporate profit in a humane and efficient national health program.
But no industry is more emblematic of our broken system than private health insurance, which drains billions of dollars from our health care system and provides nothing of value to either patients or doctors. The most glaring symptom of this greed is the exorbitant compensation packages that insurance companies pay their CEOs.
While half a million Americans file for bankruptcy due to sickness and medical bills each year, insurance and pharma CEOs walk away with eight-figure incomes. According to a comprehensive review of health industry compensation in Axios, chief executives took home nearly $2.6 billion in compensation in 2018.
For commercial insurers, their business model is simple: Pay out less for patient care than they collect in premiums. They do this by forcing providers to jump through bureaucratic hoops to provide even basic care for our patients, denying claims outright, shrinking provider networks, and pushing more costs onto patients through increased deductibles and copays.Many politicians insist that we can carve out a role for private insurance in a future Medicare for All system. Nonsense. Private insurance — and any other business that profits from our patients — is the problem, not the solution.
Help us spread the word. Share these memes on Facebook and Twitter, and be sure to follow @PNHP for daily updates and more stories to share.
Onward,
Adam Gaffney, M.D., M.P.H.
President
Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E Madison St Ste 1412 | Chicago, Illinois 60602
312-782-6006 | info@pnhp.org
The Most Revolutionary Act 
The media’s coy reference to ‘losing your private insurance!’ is purposefully misleading. See my section on M4A that covers the $Billions for-profit healthcare industry spends on lobbying government officials, and it includes a clip of Sen. Michael Bennet calling M4A “awesome.” (His statements are serious, not sarcastic, although he opposes M4A.) Here’s the link [https://joannchateau.com/progressive-candidates-2020/#Medicare_for_All_Full_Support].
If people knew how good M4A is, they wouldn’t give private insurance another thought.
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Thanks for the link, JoAnn. I have been fighting for the US to implement M4A since 1988 and am well-acquainted with all the lies the insurance companies – and the Democratic leadership – disseminate about it.
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No one has explained to me how Medicare for all would bypass insurance, or who would manage it. After all, Medicare and Medicaid are insurance, too, primarily managed by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Insurance of any sort is the problem, not the solution, because public or private insurance uses the same strategy of collecting as much as possible keeping as much as possible of the money.
People have lost control of their own health care, because the “industry” now makes all their decisions for them.
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I think calling publicly funded health care “insurance” is a deliberate attempt to mislead us, Katherine. I have lived in New Zealand for 17 years under their National Health Service and it’s great. Everyone becomes ill or has accidents occasionally, no matter how well they take care of themselves. It’s fantastic to be able to see a doctor without having to worry how to pay for it. Here in New Zealand funding for health care comes out of the general fund and our government runs a deficit, just as the US does. In other words they borrow to make sure everyone gets the health care they need. It’s only in a private system that money is withheld for profit and CEO salaries.
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Reblogged this on Zvonerul și Răspândacul and commented:
Cam asta-i directia sanatatii de la noi pe care ar vrea sa o imprime limbrica aia de ministru, care verifica paznicii si femeile de servici din spitale in campania electorala de la europarlamentare. Asta in timp ce se pronunta public in favoarea ,,privatizarii” sanatatii.
” While half a million Americans file for bankruptcy due to sickness and medical bills each year, insurance and pharma CEOs walk away with eight-figure incomes. According to a comprehensive review of health industry compensation in Axios, chief executives took home nearly $2.6 billion in compensation in 2018. ”
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