Sunday, April 14, 2019

Private Healthcare Prepare for Battle

An employee at the insurance giant UnitedHealthcare leaked a video of his boss bragging about the company's campaign to preserve America's for-profit healthcare system. The business model of for-profit health insurance depends on denying care to people who need it.

"I felt Americans needed to know exactly who it is that's fighting against the idea that healthcare is a right, not a privilege," the anonymous whistleblower told the Washington Post.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Steve Nelson boasted about how much his company is doing to undermine Medicare for All, which is rapidly gaining support in Congress.


"One of the things you said: 'We're really quiet' or 'It seems like we're quiet.' Um, we've done a lot more than you would think," Nelson said. "We are advocating heavily and very involved in the conversation. Part of it is trying to be thoughtful about how we enter in the conversation, because there's a risk of seeming like it's self-serving." The executive said his company "opposes Medicare for All because it excludes the private sector, which he said does a better job of delivering healthcare than the government, and said he doubted how a single-payer system could be funded or effectively administered."

UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of United Healthcare, raked in around $17 billion in profits and "spent about $8 million on lobbying efforts" in 2018.


UnitedHealthcare's fight against single-payer, Washington Posts Jeff Stein noted, comes "amid a broader push from the health insurance industry to prevent legislation to enact Medicare for All from getting off the ground, including by trying to direct Democrats toward more centrist efforts and reject plans that would effectively legislate many of the companies out of existence. About half a dozen representatives of lobbying firms said they had pushed for meetings with Democrats over single-payer and other proposed government expansions of healthcare," according to Stein.

Medicare for All campaigner and policy expert Tim Faust said, "When the people begin organizing against private insurance, the lonely insurance executives turn to their only friends: the elected officials beholden to their cash."


Bernie Sanders tweeted, "Our message to Steve Nelson and UnitedHealthcare is simple: When we are in the White House your greed is going to end. We will end the disgrace of millions of people being denied health care while a single company earns $226 billion and its CEO makes $7.5 million in compensation." https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/12/i-felt-americans-needed-know-insurance-industry-whistleblower-gives-glimpse-effort

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