Defending health care reform

In The Nugget's February 9, issue, I wrote a letter decrying Republicans' efforts to repeal President Obama's Affordable Care Act. The new law is gradually beginning to unwind some of the insurance industry's worst abuses. In the February 16, issue of The Nugget, Rob Malone wrote a guest column controverting my views. His analysis was rife with uninformed opinions and mischaracterizations.

For the record, I am an independent voter unaffiliated with any political party.

Mr. Malone challenged my illation that soaring growth in health-insurance premiums will be curbed henceforth by limiting health-insurance companies' profits.

According to a government-sponsored Web site (www.healthcare.gov/law/introduction/index.html) devoted to explaining The Affordable Care Act, "the new law generally requires that at least 85 percent of all premium dollars collected by insurance companies for large employer plans are spent on health care services and health care quality improvement.

For plans sold to individuals and small employers, at least 80% of the premium must be spent on benefits and quality improvement.

If insurance companies do not meet these goals because their administrative costs or profits are too high, they must provide rebates to consumers."

Mr. Malone prejudged the "Health Care Reform Act" (his misnomer) to be ineffective because "premiums are already increasing and are projected to continue to do so." He failed to observe that the provisions limiting insurers' profits only became effective less than two months ago, on January 1, 2011. Health insurers rushed to jack up their premiums before the new provisions took effect. That premiums will continue to rise does not refute the fact that the growth rate of increases will now slow thanks to this populist law.

Mr. Malone presumed in his editorial piece that the Affordable Care Act will lead to "less competition and therefore higher premiums." Again, the law expressly forbids outsized increases in premiums. In contrast, the Republicans' free-market agenda has led to insurers engaging in unfettered price-gouging. To wit, my health-insurance premiums have doubled in only three years.

Mr. Malone cited undisclosed sources of Wall Street-based metrics to argue that insurers' profits are meager. But according to the latest data available on Yahoo! Finance, dominant health insurers' annual net profits are staggering: UnitedHealth Group, $4.6 billion; WellPoint, $4.7 billion; Cigna and Aetna, $1.3 billion each.

Mr. Malone warned that "eliminating lifetime caps will eventually lead to an overall lower level of care and to care rationing." We already have care rationing, but it's profit-mongering insurers-not our government-that arbitrarily decide whether or not you will receive medical care. Meanwhile, Canada and most European countries provide single-payer systems that are ranked higher by the World Health Organization than our system in the U.S.

Can we afford to cover all Americans' health-care costs? We already do. Part of your insurance premium pays for uninsured people visiting the ER for expensive stop-gap medical services on the cadge. We pay for their care at far greater cost than if they were insured.

Mr. Malone stated he fears the Affordable Care Act will create "a government takeover of fully one-fifth of our economy." That the health-insurance industry wields so much power over our nation's financial security is deplorable (and dangerous). But to those who loathe government-run programs: refuse your Social Security and Medicare benefits and quit driving public roads.

Rather than trying to scrap the entire Affordable Care Act to score political points and appease the powerful insurance industry, Republicans should work to add to the Act's landmark reforms and amend its flaws. The Affordable Care Act is not yet perfect, but it's a big step in the right direction.

Michael Cooper has been published over 340 times in leading magazines distributed in more than 225 countries.