Time has come for answers on insurance

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© St. Petersburg Times
published October 1, 2002

Twelve years ago my then-wife and I were counting our loose change to see if we had enough money for a pizza, a six-pack of beer and a rented video. We came up short and skipped the video.

Thirty-six hours later we were sitting at a desk at a hospital in Houston, where she signed papers authorizing tens of thousands of dollars in medical care. The final bill was so high that the uninsured portions of it cost about $23,000 -- a debt we spent the rest of her life, about eight years, paying.

That's how quickly your perspective can change when your health or that of a loved one is threatened. Nobody, with very few exceptions, bargain-shops for surgeons and other specialists.

That said, I'm a little nonplussed at information contained in two stories published in this newspaper recently.

One, on Monday, quoted census bureau figures saying that the number of Americans without health insurance jumped significantly last year and cited a weak economy and rapidly rising health care costs, leading to increased insurance premiums that are causing employers to either drop insurance plans or to pass increases along to their employees.

The Los Angeles Times story quotes surveys saying more than three-fourths of employers intend to do that.

A few days earlier our business section carried a story saying insurance premiums are "helping to bankroll skyrocketing profits for insurance companies."

That story quotes a Palm Beach insurance researcher and ratings company Weiss Ratings Inc.

Profits at health insurers, according to them, soared 33 percent in the first three months of 2002.

Hmm, the rest of the economy is in the toilet, and health insurance companies, the ones that keep poor-mouthing to us about rising medical costs, are getting fat. There may have been a few other industries in that kind of profit bracket, but I can't recall the names of any of them, and I am reasonably sure my 401(k) doesn't own any of their shares.

Throw in the fact that health care agencies and professionals blame -- you got it -- rising medical malpractice premiums (from companies I would guess also aren't starving) and you sort of start to see a theme.

As with many other issues in today's society, we get the great American shrug-off. Our employers shrug at us and say, "What can we do? Rates are going up." Our doctors shrug at us and say, "What can I do? My insurance rates are killing me." And politicians mumble vague pronouncements about caring for our elderly and young, and then they shrug and say, "Please don't ask me to commit to anything specific or substantive, I'm in the middle of a campaign."

And my insurance guy, one of the better ones, who keeps a file of my anti-(and rarely but occasionally pro-) insurance diatribes, will, no doubt, call me later this morning and explain to me that it is not his industry's fault. All of them will add, either directly or through implication, "Trust us."

Someone is lying, and the people who are supposed to make them stop lying -- who have displayed an abysmal lack of ability to do so with other big-money interests -- aren't doing anything about it.

Those of you who are registered voters will be getting telephone calls during the next few weeks from people asking you to vote for this or that politician.

Ask the person calling you what his or her candidate is going to do to square obscene profits by insurance companies with skyrocketing rates and the shrinking availability of adequate health care to a growing number of people.

Just for the fun of it -- and you can only do it for the fun of it, because you won't get a straight answer -- demand specifics. Refuse to accept generalities, and ask exactly what action is going to be taken on this matter, or on others that are near and dear to you.

Yeah, I know. Most of the calls will be automatically dialed and carry prerecorded messages.

Our leaders and those who would be our leaders are often venal or ineffective . . . but not always stupid.

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