Hard Times and Health Insurance: Staying Covered When You Lose Your Job

In response to the growing number of New Yorkers who risk losing health insurance coverage in the current troubled economy, United Hospital Fund has created a guide to help New Yorkers understand how to benefit from the newly enacted COBRA premium assistance. It presents practical advice on state and federal protections, and how to exercise them. To read Hard Times and Health Insurance or look at our documents in the sidebar of the blog.

Thanks for the health insurance - suckers

President Obama said last night "It's not about me, I have the best health care in the world." So do those bought and paid for lawmakers on Capitol Hill. I checked out a government site for federal employees to see what is on offer.


The U.S. Office of Personnel Management
Ensuring the Federal Government has an affective civilian workforce


Health
Federal employees, retirees and survivors can choose coverage from the widest selection of health plans in the country.

Dental
Eligible employees and annuitants can choose among 4 nationwide and 3 regional dental plans. Nationwide plans also offer international coverage.

Vision
Eligible employees and annuitants can choose among 3 nationwide vision plans. Nationwide plans also offer international coverage.

Life
We offer the largest group life insurance program in the world, covering employees, retirees and family members.

Flexible Spending Accounts
Eligible employees can choose to enroll in up to three different flexible spending accounts during Open Season.

Long Term Care
Most Federal and U.S. Postal Service employees and annuitants, active and retired members of the uniformed services, and their qualified relatives are eligible to apply for insurance coverage under the FLTCIP.


This is not free health insurance, our politicians have to buy the plan that suits their needs. But the plans are subsidized by taxpayers, just like their pension plan. The average salary of a rank and file member of the House is about $174,000 per year, paid by taxpayers. They do alright off the public dime.

I do not deny them their benefits or their six figure salaries, but it comes with responsibilities to us and the country, not the lobbyists.

Why should health insurance be a racket?

Why should health insurance be for profit? It hadn't used to be, but as with most things, the money hungry "lets see how much we screw the people for, before they make it illegal" men in suits got their grubby hands on it.

Accident and disability insurance goes back a few hundred years, but the first health insurance plan I could track down, was started by Baylor Hospital, in Dallas Texas, in the 1920s. It began as a nonprofit for poor folks called "The Blues" it eventually morphed into Blue Cross.

During WWII, the government froze all wages for the duration, and to get around this freeze on pay, companies started to offer Health Insurance as a benefit to give people more than they were legally allowed. The concept was still nonprofit. It didn't cost an arm or a leg to fix your arm or a leg.

By the early 1980s, 10% of health insurance companies were for profit, from then onto today it has become a scam of mighty proportions, matched and aided by the bandits from Wall Street.

They pay their CEO millions of dollars, they deny coverage, underpay doctors, get successfully sued, often. The lines are so blurred that one must conclude that health insurance is a racket of highest order, profit or nonprofit. Major surgery is needed.