USA: Profits Are Bad for Your Health

A record number of Americans are without health coverage of any kind, and yet, the five biggest health insurance companies officially marked their highest ever profits in 2009.

United Health Group Inc., Well Point Inc., Aetna Inc., Humana Inc., and Cigna Corp., have managed to squeeze $12.2 billion in profits out of their customers, up $4.4 billion from 2008, making 2009 the most profitable year ever for big insurance. And that is after these same companies collectively dropped coverage for 2.7 million people. As if this wasn’t offensive enough, three of the five big insurance companies allocated more premium dollars towards “administrative costs” and profits than providing care.

These are the same private companies that the Democrats’ health “reform” would subsidize with public dollars, much of which would come through a tax on the so-called “Cadillac” plans of millions of union members. These attacks on union workers from the Democratic Party have become all too familiar.

Health care was a big impetus in the formation of the New Democratic Party in Canada, which in 1966 put pressure on the Canadian Liberal Party to pass the Medical Care Act, which established the Medicare system. The NDP was formed largely by the Canadian Labor Congress, Canada’s equivalent of the AFL-CIO.

In the US however, the AFL-CIO and many of the other unions unaffiliated with it fund Democratic campaigns as the “lesser evil.” The same was the case in Canada before the NDP, with the labor unions funding the Liberal Party as the “lesser evil.” American workers have one place to turn when it comes to fighting the bosses on the economic front, their trade unions, but American workers are currently powerless when it comes to fighting the bosses on the political front.

If the AFL-CIO, Change To Win, and other unions formed a political party to fight for the interests of workers it could be a rallying point for those who would like to see the establishment of a universal health care system here in the US. After all, the AFL-CIO has already come out in support of single-payer, a system similar to what exists in Canada. But an American Labor Party could go further and fight to cut out the middle man, the big private insurance companies. We could fight to establish a nationalized health system in which the hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, the clinics, etc. would be run as a government service, providing everyone with free, quality health care.