a nice piece by Terry Allen

In These Times

http://www.inthesetimes.com/ar…

Here’s what corporations know, but don’t want you to find out: Private insurance is for suckers.

Armies of healthcare industry flacks, lobbyists and bought-and-paid-for legislators rant that nonprofit, public insurance is a slippery slope to socialist hell, will limit your choice of physicians to Doc Watson and Dr. Kevorkian, and bankrupt the country. But, in fact, most U.S. Fortune 500 companies wouldn’t touch private insurance with a 10-foot colonoscope.

When they need to insure their financial health against fire, terrorism, and liability lawsuits sparked by defective products and polluting factories that kill people, they don’t call State Farm. Instead, corporations routinely insure themselves by creating a “captive” insurance company as a wholly-owned subsidiary. “The parent company is insuring its own risk,” says Sandy Bigglestone, of Vermont’s Captive Insurance division.

But when we the people need health insurance against the high cost of staying alive, we, or our employers, pay private insurers-corporations that are more devoted to protecting their profits than our health. The premiums we pay go not only for our pills and treatments, but also for lobbyists (on whom the health insurance industry currently spends $1.4 million per day for the U.S. Congress alone), campaign contributions, stratospheric executive salaries, private jets, lawyers hired to fight legitimate claims, and, of course, profits.

Click here for the complete article.