Editor, Times-Union: The U.S. healthcare system has the most expensive premiums, yet the healthcare is the worst in the developed World. Why is that you might ask? Well, it is all because of the Health Insurance Mafia. When we pay our high premiums every month – not all of the money goes to healthcare, consequently a large sum of it goes into the pockets of the Health Insurance Mafia. It is a protection racket, or an extortion scheme whereby we are coerced, or should I now say – forced to pay – exceeding large amounts of money in exchange for protection, which a lot of times we do not actually get. You see – the Insurance Mafia makes their money by not paying claims. They don’t make money paying them. Again, when we pay our outrageously high premiums every month a large majority of it does not go to healthcare. It goes into the pockets of the Health Insurance Mafia. The Health Insurance Mafia reaps in revenues of more than $500 billion per year. Who then pass some of the cash to the only people able to stop them (Congress) and those people then vote to keep the extortion scheme going. How is this not organized crime? In fact, insurance corporations (mafia) are very good at remembering to kick some of that dough back to Congress, their law enforcers. It would be logical then to think that as a result of these high premiums – the biggest in the world – the quality of the healthcare offered in the U.S. would be among the best, if not the best, in the world. Unfortunately, that would be wrong and, in fact, the reality is the complete opposite. As a result of a recent study done by the “Commonweath Fund” looking at how the U.S. healthcare system compares internationally, it finds “the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in their earlier editions, the U.S. is last or near last on dimensions of access, efficiency and equity.” In other words, the U.S. health care system is the most expensive, yet the worst in the developed world. The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world, yet this report and prior editions consistently show the U.S. underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance. Again I say: “Why you might ask?” Because the money we spend in high premiums does not all go to healthcare. A large majority of it goes to the Health Insurance Mafia. An extortion racket, where we pay exceedingly high amounts of money for protection that we most of the time do not get. While millions of us continue to struggle with the consequences of the most colossal and fraudulent transfer of wealth in world history. The Health Insurance Mafia profits are soaring, compliments of us – the policyholders. We do not need the Health Insurance Mafia in this country. We need non-profit, single payer, Universal Healthcare without the Mafia as the middleman. Bennie Hively Warsaw, via email
