In response to: “Insurance dispute prompts canceled contract”, Free Lance of Friday, March 11, 2016:
Bullying bravado hammers the red ball up into the screeching bell of raucous unattractive posturing. Think this Aetna cancelled contract is an issue solely between Hazel Hawkins Hospital and Aetna? May I help you think some more? The truth is that all of us who use our hospital; patients, clients, staff, employees, and citizens of San Benito County are under attack. We all become vacuumed into dust bins. Aetna holds us hostage with our own money called Health Insurance Premiums. Just like a school yard bully Aetna threatens all the kids because intervening teachers do not exist. Another way to explain the situation would be like holding a person’s head underwater after taking his wallet or refusing to throw a life vest to a victim drowning in a sea of sharks.
The facts, as I see them, are that health insurers, not only Aetna but Blue Cross as well, accumulate our premiums and use them as ransom over our healthcare. Apparently ethics and morality become unknowns to these people. These health insurance bullies bulge biceps swollen on steroid premiums.
The worst is yet to come. It appears on the daily pages of the San Jose Mercury and the San Francisco Chronicle known as the Financial Section. Corporate Aetna and Blue Cross are traded daily on the New York Stock Exchange. Their price is up and will rise higher depending on quarterly profits. This makes me feel like vomiting as if I took a dose of Ipecac. Binoculars are not needed to see that these companies are not in the healthcare business but are in the money making business.
These monster companies feed on the public. The only way to rid ourselves of these “Hulks” is to take the “Hulks” out of healthcare. Medicare for All, also known as Single Payer, accomplishes that and more. This plan saves money because the insurers can’t get their hands on it. Best of all we luxuriate in quality care. This saves our physicians and most importantly saves our own hospital!
Mary Zanger is a Hollister resident and was a career pharmacist.
