by flory
Good editorial in the NYTimes. They hit the high points on what's needed to make sure healthcare reform actually reforms anything:
As health care reform moves forward, Congress must impose tighter regulation of companies that clearly are not doing enough to regulate themselves. Creating a public plan could also help restrain the worst practices, by providing competition and an alternative
My one quibble is in the first paragraph:
Congressional committees heard a lot this month about the devious schemes used by health insurance companies to drop or shortchange sick patients. It was a damning portrait — and one Americans know from painful personal experience — of an industry that all too often puts profits ahead of patients.
If by "all too often" you mean "always" then that's an accurate statement. The for-profit insurance industry -- and that's the majority of the healthcare insurance biz these days -- is pretty much by definition 'for-profit'. When you consider your patient payouts to be your 'medical losses', then your job is to be putting your profits ahead of your patients.