Obviously in his position as a risk manager he has not had to deal with the general populace as clients/prospects. Our esteemed ‘leaders’ in the P/C industry have been too busy counting PIF, and GWP to realize that the majority of americans are extremely misinformed if not totally ignorant in terms of insurance. Couple that with a short sighted top gun who has an unbridled vacant headed following in Washington and mention insurance and it only applies to the premium the uninformed are paying. Granted I believe all forms of insurance could use a review and assessment of the processes, but here in the NW where we have all the Dot-Com and computer geniuses, it doesn’t take long to wonder who dresses these people before they run out and get elected to the senate.
The insurance industry is joing many other American industries that are vilified by the Democrats. Namely: banks, energy companies, Wall Street, WalMart, car manfu, doctors, drug companies, loggers, farmers, Chamber of Commerce, Fox News, industrials on and on. Is there anything about this country they favor?
Other than the elite far left intellectuals (in their minds) we had all better wake up. The Health Insurance public option is all about nationalizing another segment of our free enterprise system. It is not about fixing health insurance as that would not be hard to do with simple steps.
After they grab health insurance, what is next? Maybe auto because it is too expensive for bad drivers and that is not fair to socialists!!
Time for every one to actively and loudly object to the Obama actions to minimize or take over all aspects of our free enterprise system.
Maybe, just maybe, it is time to call it like it is without labeling political parties. Everyone should ask am I better off or can it be better than it is? Then HOW !!! We have always depended on the “middle Class” & it is tanking. The guys at the top are doing everything in their power to cut out the middle class. It is time that stopped. I personally am tired of crumbs that drop or slip thru the cracks for folks to catch.
Sampson is way off base. What the Democratic Administration is vilfying is the healthcare industry’s complicity in the funding and promotion of distortions, half-truths and outright fictions as a cynical strategy to derail healthcare reform. The root problem is that a profit-driven healthcare industry has proven to be economically unsustainable and eventually must be dismantled.
How could anyone expect any sense of objectivity from a former Bush official? It it not the end of life as we know it people. The same paranoia existed at the introduction of Social Security and Medicare. It is understandable that private insurance companies must underwrite (ration?) to stay in business. They have not met that issue head-on. They continue to run away from that while fostering half truths and inuendo to further their existance (as well as their roughly 30% expense ratio vs. medicare’s less than 10% expense ratio). They need to get out of their bunker mentality and start dealing with reality. Nobody’s private and employer sponsored insurance premiums are going down. How long can this current system last? I echo Mr. Vaugh here in stating that the current system is nsustainable. I is time to stop the paranoia and start finding solutions.
Alsways nice to watch the Obama “truth” squad go to work.
Does health care need to be fixed – – – for sure it does but it does not have to be taken over by government which is the least competent “business enterprise” in the history of our country.
This is all about socializing medicine and 16% of our economy. There are a myriad of clips of Obama talking to unions and other groups saying that it is time for a single payer system. In one clip he said that “we may not get it all in the first step but we will keep working at until we do”.
Let’s fix it; not destroy it by turning it over to a completely incompetent government!
Many opinion show the P+C industry to have little respect. A recent BI article spoke of insurers in a self wrought “circular firing squad”…look at some of the absurd soft market pricing to gain market share..the fallout from the contingent commission fiasco and it goes on and on.
The industry ( and consumer) would be better served having Mr Sampson lead the way to modernizing and improving the industry, not with us useless rhetoric.
There is too much difference between health “insurance,” which is really health care financing, and other forms of insurance, to draw conclusions about the broader impact of the health care debate.
In particular, property/casualty underwriting adds value in a way health underwriting cannot.
When a property/casualty underwriter cites your driving record, your dog’s propensity to attack, or your home’s susceptibility to storm damage, you can DO something about these things for little or no cost.
But, if a health underwriter rejects you for a pre-existing condition, what can you do?
Similarly, P&C underwriters commonly provide businesses with practical, actionable suggestions for reducing risk. These steps may be costly, but rarely distasteful.
But what is an employer to do when told by a health underwriter that its staff is too old, or too female, or that one person is “skewing the experience.” The choices are chilling to contemplate.
Along the same line, the vast majority of Americans can afford to pay a rate for P&C coverage that reflects their risk, and they can lower their rate by reducing their risk. In contrast, there are many health conditions for which no one but a multi-millionaire could pay a fully risk-adjusted rate.
Given that, the logical way for private health insurers to serve their members is to keep out high-cost risks. That’s not evil; it’s simply the way the incentives are structured.
To work effectively, health care needs a level of public commitment that property and liability risk does not. There needs to be an enduring covenant of generations, wherein younger, healthier people subsidize the care of their elders (both working and retired) in return for a promise that, as they age, they will receive the same consideration. Also, there needs to be a covenant among the healthy to subsidize care for the sick.
As for me, I’ll be happy to pay and be thankful that I’m not among the sick, at least not yet.
Dude. It’s not a truth squad. It’s reality. Health care costs and premiums continue to rise every year. Do you remember any year where your premiums went down for the same coverage? Nobody should go broke when they get sick. Health care is a right, not a privilege. It’s easy to cry socialism, truth squads and other sorts of paranoia when you have benefits (which you probably do). But, failing to recognize the unsustainability of the current system will lead to another financial meltdown.
I agree with the surging health care costs but that problem could be fixed to some extent with allowing more competition within the Health Insurance markets.
Government is not the answer!! Name one government function where they are more efficient than the private sector??
Remember the Energy Department formed under Carter to make us energy independent? A $22 Billion budget now with 160000 employees and consultants; are we any more energy independent than we were 30 years ago???
Government is not the answer; it is the problem.
The government has absolutely no business in people’s personal affairs. There is no valid argument to the contrary so everyone of you who think it’s really great to “reform” the health care business should get a clue. Costs will go UP (not down), quality will go DOWN and access will be DENIED (please see UK, Canada, France or your favorite health care system). None of what you dream of in your egalitarian fantasy will come true.
Costs are already going up and quality is going down and those other countries you site have better health care “systems” then we do. None of them has 20 to 40 (chose your own number)million uninsured. The insurance industry should stop trying to kill reform and start trying to make a better system.
To whomever said it wasn’t a “party” thing or a “label” thing…it is. Democrats are “for” screwing up the whole system, and republicans are for slowing down and doing it right. So here’s to firing all the democrats in 2010. It’s about time.
I would love to see that happen. We’ve already been through it for 8 years. Now we’re on a 4 year break before the Republicans have an opportunity to reclaim power again. And when they do, I’d like to see what happens and how the american public will react to their policy.
I mean, wasn’t that the whole reason behind electing a democratic president and electing a democratic majority in the house and senate? I think it was because most of the americans were sick of republican policy.
Funny thing is that there were a lot of people that voted for Obama that you see at these tea baggings…I mean tea parties.
The real truth is that there is not a single uninsured person in this country. All persons are covered by Medicaid if they do not have private insurance. If you appear at a hospital you will be cared for by Federal law. What we are all really arguing about is how best to deliver health care. If you think the government can do this best please do not send your reply via the Postal Service
Obviously in his position as a risk manager he has not had to deal with the general populace as clients/prospects. Our esteemed ‘leaders’ in the P/C industry have been too busy counting PIF, and GWP to realize that the majority of americans are extremely misinformed if not totally ignorant in terms of insurance. Couple that with a short sighted top gun who has an unbridled vacant headed following in Washington and mention insurance and it only applies to the premium the uninformed are paying. Granted I believe all forms of insurance could use a review and assessment of the processes, but here in the NW where we have all the Dot-Com and computer geniuses, it doesn’t take long to wonder who dresses these people before they run out and get elected to the senate.
The insurance industry is joing many other American industries that are vilified by the Democrats. Namely: banks, energy companies, Wall Street, WalMart, car manfu, doctors, drug companies, loggers, farmers, Chamber of Commerce, Fox News, industrials on and on. Is there anything about this country they favor?
Other than the elite far left intellectuals (in their minds) we had all better wake up. The Health Insurance public option is all about nationalizing another segment of our free enterprise system. It is not about fixing health insurance as that would not be hard to do with simple steps.
After they grab health insurance, what is next? Maybe auto because it is too expensive for bad drivers and that is not fair to socialists!!
Time for every one to actively and loudly object to the Obama actions to minimize or take over all aspects of our free enterprise system.
Maybe, just maybe, it is time to call it like it is without labeling political parties. Everyone should ask am I better off or can it be better than it is? Then HOW !!! We have always depended on the “middle Class” & it is tanking. The guys at the top are doing everything in their power to cut out the middle class. It is time that stopped. I personally am tired of crumbs that drop or slip thru the cracks for folks to catch.
Sampson is way off base. What the Democratic Administration is vilfying is the healthcare industry’s complicity in the funding and promotion of distortions, half-truths and outright fictions as a cynical strategy to derail healthcare reform. The root problem is that a profit-driven healthcare industry has proven to be economically unsustainable and eventually must be dismantled.
How could anyone expect any sense of objectivity from a former Bush official? It it not the end of life as we know it people. The same paranoia existed at the introduction of Social Security and Medicare. It is understandable that private insurance companies must underwrite (ration?) to stay in business. They have not met that issue head-on. They continue to run away from that while fostering half truths and inuendo to further their existance (as well as their roughly 30% expense ratio vs. medicare’s less than 10% expense ratio). They need to get out of their bunker mentality and start dealing with reality. Nobody’s private and employer sponsored insurance premiums are going down. How long can this current system last? I echo Mr. Vaugh here in stating that the current system is nsustainable. I is time to stop the paranoia and start finding solutions.
Alsways nice to watch the Obama “truth” squad go to work.
Does health care need to be fixed – – – for sure it does but it does not have to be taken over by government which is the least competent “business enterprise” in the history of our country.
This is all about socializing medicine and 16% of our economy. There are a myriad of clips of Obama talking to unions and other groups saying that it is time for a single payer system. In one clip he said that “we may not get it all in the first step but we will keep working at until we do”.
Let’s fix it; not destroy it by turning it over to a completely incompetent government!
Many opinion show the P+C industry to have little respect. A recent BI article spoke of insurers in a self wrought “circular firing squad”…look at some of the absurd soft market pricing to gain market share..the fallout from the contingent commission fiasco and it goes on and on.
The industry ( and consumer) would be better served having Mr Sampson lead the way to modernizing and improving the industry, not with us useless rhetoric.
There is too much difference between health “insurance,” which is really health care financing, and other forms of insurance, to draw conclusions about the broader impact of the health care debate.
In particular, property/casualty underwriting adds value in a way health underwriting cannot.
When a property/casualty underwriter cites your driving record, your dog’s propensity to attack, or your home’s susceptibility to storm damage, you can DO something about these things for little or no cost.
But, if a health underwriter rejects you for a pre-existing condition, what can you do?
Similarly, P&C underwriters commonly provide businesses with practical, actionable suggestions for reducing risk. These steps may be costly, but rarely distasteful.
But what is an employer to do when told by a health underwriter that its staff is too old, or too female, or that one person is “skewing the experience.” The choices are chilling to contemplate.
Along the same line, the vast majority of Americans can afford to pay a rate for P&C coverage that reflects their risk, and they can lower their rate by reducing their risk. In contrast, there are many health conditions for which no one but a multi-millionaire could pay a fully risk-adjusted rate.
Given that, the logical way for private health insurers to serve their members is to keep out high-cost risks. That’s not evil; it’s simply the way the incentives are structured.
To work effectively, health care needs a level of public commitment that property and liability risk does not. There needs to be an enduring covenant of generations, wherein younger, healthier people subsidize the care of their elders (both working and retired) in return for a promise that, as they age, they will receive the same consideration. Also, there needs to be a covenant among the healthy to subsidize care for the sick.
As for me, I’ll be happy to pay and be thankful that I’m not among the sick, at least not yet.
Dude. It’s not a truth squad. It’s reality. Health care costs and premiums continue to rise every year. Do you remember any year where your premiums went down for the same coverage? Nobody should go broke when they get sick. Health care is a right, not a privilege. It’s easy to cry socialism, truth squads and other sorts of paranoia when you have benefits (which you probably do). But, failing to recognize the unsustainability of the current system will lead to another financial meltdown.
I agree with the surging health care costs but that problem could be fixed to some extent with allowing more competition within the Health Insurance markets.
Government is not the answer!! Name one government function where they are more efficient than the private sector??
Remember the Energy Department formed under Carter to make us energy independent? A $22 Billion budget now with 160000 employees and consultants; are we any more energy independent than we were 30 years ago???
Government is not the answer; it is the problem.
The government has absolutely no business in people’s personal affairs. There is no valid argument to the contrary so everyone of you who think it’s really great to “reform” the health care business should get a clue. Costs will go UP (not down), quality will go DOWN and access will be DENIED (please see UK, Canada, France or your favorite health care system). None of what you dream of in your egalitarian fantasy will come true.
This will leave major league baseball as the only business enterprise exempt from the federal antitrust laws.
Costs are already going up and quality is going down and those other countries you site have better health care “systems” then we do. None of them has 20 to 40 (chose your own number)million uninsured. The insurance industry should stop trying to kill reform and start trying to make a better system.
To whomever said it wasn’t a “party” thing or a “label” thing…it is. Democrats are “for” screwing up the whole system, and republicans are for slowing down and doing it right. So here’s to firing all the democrats in 2010. It’s about time.
I would love to see that happen. We’ve already been through it for 8 years. Now we’re on a 4 year break before the Republicans have an opportunity to reclaim power again. And when they do, I’d like to see what happens and how the american public will react to their policy.
I mean, wasn’t that the whole reason behind electing a democratic president and electing a democratic majority in the house and senate? I think it was because most of the americans were sick of republican policy.
Funny thing is that there were a lot of people that voted for Obama that you see at these tea baggings…I mean tea parties.
The real truth is that there is not a single uninsured person in this country. All persons are covered by Medicaid if they do not have private insurance. If you appear at a hospital you will be cared for by Federal law. What we are all really arguing about is how best to deliver health care. If you think the government can do this best please do not send your reply via the Postal Service