The death of the health care industry

Something the President said in a recent speech has really troubled me for a bit now. The statement was "14,000 Americans a day are losing their health care coverage". If you look at that statement in a slightly different way it could also be said that "health insurance companies are losing 14,000 paying customers a day".

My theory is the obvious. That the majority of these 14,000 Americans a day are voluntarily dropping their health care coverage because they can better use the 5,000.00 to 6,000.00 per year to service debt, if not put food on the table. 6,000.00 per year is a 3.00 per hour raise for working families in a very tough economy. Certainly, to me at least, it even seems to make perfect sense for young healthy people.

Of course the problem with that is that it sets a trend in motion where, in the end, if it were to continue, only those with the greatest need of it would end up paying for health insurance. Health insurance would only cover those among us who are at greater risk of needing medical services.

This is, of course, the exact opposite of what many in Washington are now saying they would like to do. It is also the exact opposite of what the insurance companies want to have happen. What this group seems to be pushing to solve this problem is to force, by power of law, every citizen to pay money directly to a single sector of our economy, the health insurance industry.

This is what convinces me that the entire health care industry is nothing less than a fully inflated bubble. I believe the health insurance industry will likely end up just like the banks did. In a state of total collapse and seized by the Government.

What the congress, with help from the Obama administration, are currently doing on the health care issue is nothing more than a preemptive strike.

This would be outright theft.

If the health insurance industry needs to go bankrupt and consolidate then they should be allowed, yea forced, to do so. We cannot treat every sector like we did the banks... The health care industry represents 1/6th of our economy. Government cannot afford it. Neither, can we. If the insurance industry has priced itself out of business then they should FAIL. So many people seem to have forgotten that that is HOW capitalism WORKS!

I fear the collapse of the health care industry will be the death knell for the US economy. The US economy simply cannot with stand another shock of this magnitude.

To make health care truly affordable for all Americans would bankrupt the entire industry.

We could always make shorting health care stocks illegal...

Greg