Private health insurance offers us sickly benefits

Has President Bush spent most of his life benefiting from taxpayer funded insurance writes one observer..BD

It may seem incredible to some entrepreneurs that a business would chase away paying customers, but it's true in the health insurance industry. Policyholders are not assets, but liabilities on a private health insurance company's moral balance sheet. A policyholder with a chronic illness can run up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical bills a year while paying less than $10,000 a year in premiums. Like any for-profit business, a commercial health insurance company's first obligation is to the stockholders, not the policyholders, and as a result, private health insurance companies have a conflict of interest with their policyholders. The economic reality is that it is basically impossible to run a for-profit health insurance company honestly and still obtain the 15 percent and higher return on investment demanded by stockholders and board members.

In contrast to what he wishes to impose on his fellow Americans, President Bush has spent much of his adult life with taxpayer-funded health insurance, or as he calls it, "socialized" health care. As governor of Texas, Bush and his family's health insurance was taxpayer-subsidized. Bush has received health care from the taxpayers as president and he and Laura Bush will continue to enjoy the benefits of "socialized medicine" for the rest of their lives.