Dec 22, 2009

A Great Day on Wall Street: 180,000 dead Americans

Healthcare shares rose on Monday as a bill to reform healthcare passed the first critical test in the Senate . . . Shares of Cigna rose 5.3 percent to $37.69. Shares of Aetna Inc rose 5.84 percent to $34.41. Humana Inc rose 3.79 percent to $45.17 and United Health Group Inc rose 5 percent to $33.14. Shares of Wellpoint Inc rose 3.8 percent to $60.51. —Reuters

A recent, much-quoted Harvard study estimated that 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of health insurance. Either the insurance they had turned out to be inadequate to cover their needed care, or their longterm lack of insurance caused them to miss early medical treatments that would have prevented subsequent fatal illnesses.

In the Democrats push to persuade people like Howard Dean to sign on to their awful bill, they’ve used this issue often: How can any good dem or progressive not want to help the 45,000 people who will die this year without reform?

Of course, the fact that most of the people pushing the bill have more than adequate insurance already, and that many who oppose it, like myself, are longterm uninsured should be a clue.

But here’s the real problem: the benefits from the proposed bill do not kick in until 2014. That’s four more years of the rapidly deteriorating status quo. Given the tanking economy and more people losing their jobs/insurance and the fact that the insurance companies will be continuing their profit-seeking ways, likely more than 45,000 per year will die while waiting for the miracle bill to take effect.

In four years, that’s 180,000 dead Americans. The President and Senate have decided that, sadly, nothing can be done for them. Wouldn’t want to upset the insurance industry.

And Wall Street is happy, happy, happy.

Michael Sky | CommonHealth