Dr. Howard Green, managing partner of Dermatology Associates of the Palm Beaches in Florida, wrote the following opinion piece about the failure of the private health insurance industry for The Palm Beach Post:
Private health insurance industry has failed patients
By DR. HOWARD GREEN
All of the well-publicized political health care programs have one thing in common: They all seek to steer larger portions of Medicare and Medicaid through private insurance corporations. They differ only in their degrees of rationing, with President Obama’s plan restricting rationing for profit and Rep. Paul Ryan’s mandate allowing the most rationing by the health insurance industry.
What Republicans and Democrats fail to disclose is that for more than 40 years the middle man of American health care – the private insurance industry – has failed in almost every capitalistic, economic and medical measure to deliver for the American patient.
Unlike auto insurance, private medical insurance has failed to accept and spread risk, thereby preventing the delivery of quality, affordable health care .
All the private health insurers have failed to prevent personal bankruptcies due to medical illness. The administrative bureaucracy of private health insurers removes $500 billion a year from health care. Managed health care brokered by private insurance companies has failed to improve medical outcomes and lower morbidity (sickness) and mortality (death rates) for all Americans regardless of income, sex or location.