Anthem’s parent company defends health insurance rate hike – latimes.com
February 12th, 2010 | 
Author: I don’t even know where to start on this subject. I will try to keep from typing 4 letter words and cursing the whole medical industry in this post, but rest assured I am thinking them in my head and if anybody was in hearing distance I would be shouting them out loud.
In one of them most challenging economic times this country has ever faced, the idea of a company hiking its prices by 40% on what is pretty much an essential product is utterly despicable. Unfortunately, they are not the problem. The problem lies in the doctors and hospitals. It lies with the drug companies and corporations that run medical facilities as cash cows where the unfortunate are raped and pillaged. It is unacceptable.
Our president and elected officials have one thing right – reform is needed. Unfortunately, they are being paid by those that are the problem. It isn’t insurance reform that is needed, it is the industry that needs to be changed. It should be illegal for a hospital to charge $50 for an aspirin – this is a real number from a real medical bill my grandmother got. One simple, over the counter aspirin (probably not even name brand) was billed at $50. Why is this acceptable? Why is this not being addressed? Simple, there is no money to be made by addressing the ridiculous costs. Instead, we are going to force people to buy insurance that will pay these prices and everybody makes money while the person that is sick gets screwed.
You can read the article if you choose, but it will probably only make you mad. Unfortunately, we cannot count on our elected officials to help us because they are mostly in the pocket of big business. Our only recourse is to get healthy and hope we don’t have to subject ourselves to medical care very often because we will get screwed virtually eveyr time.
The parent company of Anthem Blue Cross on Thursday defended its 39% increase in premiums for individual policyholders in California, saying the rising rates reflect soaring medical costs but are "very competitively priced when compared with other California plans."
Anthem’s parent company defends health insurance rate hike – latimes.com
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