Voice Your Opposition Now to a New Government-Run Health Insurance Plan
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, a division of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), strongly supports thoughtful health care reform that controls costs, provides all Americans with access to health insurance coverage, and improves the overall quality of our health care system.
But Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois and many of our state's employers are concerned about a proposal currently being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives to create a new government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois believes that a government-run insurance plan as described in the House proposal would:
· severely damage the current employer-based system for providing health benefits;
· exacerbate cost shifting;
· eventually squeeze private insurers from the market;
· cause employers to lose any ability to manage the costs of coverage, while still accountable for continued contributions; and
· jeopardize delivery system reforms critical to controlling costs.
Over the years, employers together with private insurance plans, not government health care, have led the way in innovations such as chronic disease management, preventative wellness programs and centers of excellence.
Please make your voice heard in opposition to a new government-run health plan by sending an e-mail message to your representative in Congress today. Let him or her know you support health care reform, but believe a new government-run health plan is not necessary to achieve meaningful reform. Your perspective and expertise on this issue is vitally important to this effort and we thank you in advance for your interest and your advocacy.
Please click HERE to take action. Please Note: When you click this link to take action you will be directed to HCSC's Advocacy Web Site. To contact your Representatives, please click TAKE ACTION NOW! on the right side of the page to begin. We have provided a pre-written message, but feel free to personalize it.
Once you have taken action, you will be asked if you would like to forward this action alert on to a friend. We encourage you to forward this action alert on to your colleagues and any one else who might be interested in making their voices heard.
The surprising part, for me, is just how baldly illogical their arguments are. Consider it point by point:
This is kind of funny. The cost shifting I am worried about is private insurers cherry-picking and dumping all people who actually use any care on the public system. I expect this will be a self-limiting strategy, because the public will wise up and stop paying the private insures to begin with after they realize that you get dumped for using medical care.
Anyway, for those that don't see this kind of astro-turf crap every day, it is mildly illuminating.
