Do Health Insurance Companies Care About People?

[Dan Conner]

Some on this site have said insurnace companies do care about people. Is that so? Well, in today's (2/12/10) issue of The Free Press, a wire service story from the McClatchy-Tribune News Service said the five largest health insurance companies racked up $12.2 billion in profits in 2009. That was a 56% increase over 2008. Those insurance companies are:

Wellpoint, Inc.
UnitedHealth Group
Cigna Corp.
Aetna
Humana

Now, increasing profits from increasing enrollments might seem logical and expected, but the ironic thing is that these five health insurance companies made this 56% increase in profits while covering 2.7 million fewer people than the year before. In addition, 3 out of the 5 insurance companies spent a smaller percentage of their premiums collected on medical care.

I think this is another major indicator that health insurance companies don't care nearly as much about people as they do profits, even if they have to deny people coverage. What do you propose as an action to counteract this?

[Jonathan Kovaciny]

Does any large company care about people? Not directly, but that's okay most of the time. Most companies have to keep people happy in order to keep those same people as repeat customers. In order to stay in business (by taking in more profits than their competitors), they have to keep most of the people happy most of the time. The company with the happiest customers usually has an advantage.

However, for some companies, such as most health insurance companies, the connection between each dollar of income and an individual customer's happiness isn't very strong. The reason for this weak connection is almost entirely government interference in the health care marketplace.

Thousands of coverage mandates have destroyed the small and specialty insurers, leaving the big boys to dominate the market. The little guys can't absorb the immense costs associated with required coverages. This has effectively destroyed all the "mom-and-pop" insurers. By way of analogy, car insurance companies can specialize if they want to: only motorcycles, only super-safe drivers, only people with DWIs, online-only claims filing, only catastrophic-loss coverage, etc. They can differentiate themselves and prove to customers that they're the best for the customer's needs. Health insurance companies can't do that--they've been forced by the state to essentially all be exactly the same.

Wage controls in the 1940s forced employers to start offering benefits to attract and retain good employees because they couldn't offer them higher wages. This is largely why health insurance coverage is very difficult and very expensive to get for the unemployed or self-employed. It also added a degree of separation between the consumption of health care services and the payment for the health care services, which encourages people to over-consume. If your employer provided "food insurance" which was required to pay for three square meals a day, you'd be a lot more likely to order the steak and eggs instead of the oatmeal for breakfast.

Coverage mandates have also turned health insurance from actual insurance into a complex third-party payment system. Health insurance is no longer about pooling the risk of unexpected large expenditures, in the way that car insurance pools the risk of a horrific $100,000 accident. Instead, it pays for part or all of just about all costs incurred ... It's not covering just the super-expensive risks, or the less-expensive risks, but even known future events. When health insurance is not about risk anymore, but about covering virtually everything all the time, it's not insurance, but group payment for individual expenditures. This further unlinks the health care payer and the health care recipient, making it less important to keep individual customers happy.

If your car insurance was forced to cover oil changes, and everybody's car insurance was paid for their employers, the cost of an oil change would no longer be listed on the wall at Jiffy Lube or Valvoline -- customers wouldn't know or care how much it cost because they didn't have to get out their wallet to pay for it. Even if there were a $5 co-pay, Jiffy Lube would have little incentive to not inflate the amount they billed your car insurance company. Who's to say that an oil change doesn't cost $250 or even $500? The customer doesn't need to shop around any more since Jiffy Lube, Valvoline, and everyone else in town are all charging the same $5 co-pay. The insurance company doesn't much care whether you're happy with your oil change or not, they just care about how much it's costing them. So they set up a network of providers that will only charge them $150 per oil change: now it doesn't matter who provides the best service to you at the price you want, but who can squeeze the most out of everyone else. Now Valvoline is out of your network, so it costs you $30 to get an oil change from them. Even if you like Valvoline better than Jiffy Lube, the $5 co-pay is going to make you go to Jiffy Lube anyway. The car insurance company wants lower cost but doesn't care much about quality; Jiffy Lube tries to bill your car insurance as much as possible, and they don't care much about their customers any more because they don't really have a choice to go elsewhere, and the customer has little incentive not to go in for an oil change every two weeks. Now suppose that once you've met your deductible, even your gasoline is free. Now what's to stop you from driving 5,000 miles just for the fun of it?

To further the analogy, now suppose that all the oil change techs are required by the state to get a college degree in auto mechanics and an advanced degree in vehicle lubrication. The cost of all this education, including the time spent in the classroom instead of changing oil, is now added to the cost of the oil change. Fewer people become oil change techs because of the upfront cost of education, which further drives up the cost. Now Jiffy Lube and Valvoline can't even make a profit on a $500 oil change -- they have to bump it up to $1,000.

Now that the costs are so high and a lot more money is at stake, now suppose that Jiffy Lube and Valvoline have to get malpractice insurance to cover lawsuits people file whenever their car breaks down. Now they have to bump up the cost of an oil change to $1,250. Etc., etc., etc.

End result: costs increase at every level, and customer satisfaction goes out the window. If we want to solve this problem, we need to get health insurance back to being REAL insurance. Consumers need to be able to purchase their health insurance individually, from whatever insurance company they choose, with any coverages they choose, and they need to purchase their health care individually, from whatever health care provider they choose, with whatever care they choose. Doctors and other providers need to be able to offer whatever care they choose, wherever they choose, at whatever cost they choose. Insurance companies need to be able to sell insurance to whomever they choose, with any coverages they choose, at whatever cost they choose.

Do this, and health care costs will be driven back down to a level where just about everyone can afford just about everything they need, with cheap insurance covering the unexpected large expenses. Those very few who still can't afford care can turn to their family, friends, and charities for help -- and the help they request might be for a $300 MRI or $100 insurance payment, not the ridiculous costs we see today that have little bearing on reality. Also, health care providers and health care insurers will once again have to prove to actual consumers that they are providing the best bang for their buck, and people will no longer be stuck in jobs they hate just because they can't afford to lose the health insurance.

Justly acquired profits are not evil, even if the profits are large. They make both the payer and the payee happy, because they both get what they want or they wouldn't make the transaction. However, profits obtained or inflated as a result of government intervention only make one side of the transaction happy. The health care providers and the health care insurers are in bed with the government, so we all suffer the consequences.

If we want to fix health care in America, we need to treat the disease, not the symptoms.

[Dan Conner]

Does any large company care about people? Not directly, but that's okay most of the time. Most companies have to keep people happy in order to keep those same people as repeat customers.

However, for some companies, such as most health insurance companies, the connection between each dollar of income and an individual customer's happiness isn't very strong. The reason for this weak connection is almost entirely government interference in the health care marketplace.

Thousands of coverage mandates have destroyed the small and specialty insurers, leaving the big boys to dominate the market. The little guys can't absorb the immense costs associated with required coverages.

Health insurance is no longer about pooling the risk of unexpected large expenditures, in the way that car insurance pools the risk of a horrific $100,000 accident. It's not covering just the super-expensive risks, or the less-expensive risks, but even known future events.

If your car insurance was forced to cover oil changes, and everybody's car insurance was paid for their employers, the cost of an oil change would no longer be listed on the wall at Jiffy Lube or Valvoline -- customers wouldn't know or care how much it cost because they didn't have to get out their wallet to pay for it.

To further the analogy, now suppose that all the oil change techs are required by the state to get a college degree in auto mechanics and an advanced degree in vehicle lubrication. The cost of all this education, including the time spent in the classroom instead of changing oil, is now added to the cost of the oil change.

Now that the costs are so high and a lot more money is at stake, now suppose that Jiffy Lube and Valvoline have to get malpractice insurance to cover lawsuits people file whenever their car breaks down. Now they have to bump up the cost of an oil change to $1,250. Etc., etc., etc.

End result: costs increase at every level, and customer satisfaction goes out the window. If we want to solve this problem, we need to get health insurance back to being REAL insurance. Consumers need to be able to purchase their health insurance individually, from whatever insurance company they choose, with any coverages they choose, and they need to purchase their health care individually, from whatever health care provider they choose, with whatever care they choose.

Do this, and health care costs will be driven back down to a level where just about everyone can afford just about everything they need, with cheap insurance covering the unexpected large expenses. I have redacted much of your post here, so that mine can fit in. You can read you own post above to refresh you memory of what you said. Jonathon, you forget that health insurance companies have a federal and state sanctioned monopoly. So, in most cases there is either no, or at least very little, competition. They risk no loss of customers because they have a captive audience.

What you call government interference is not accurate. Health insurance companies asked/insisted they needed monopolies to give competitive prices to customers. So, the government granted the sanctioned monopolies. The government didn't interfere, insurance companies asked for the help. They got it. Maybe at the time, it was well intentioned, but the insurance companies now abuse that power. As a side, the Congress has talked about separate legislation to revoke the monopoy sanction, but the effort has been heartily resisted by the health insurance industry and Republicans. Insurnace companies have funneled millions of dollars to stop that effort.

Also, your statement about risk is not correct. Health insurnace companies often deny many many coverages as "experimental," even though these procedures have been done thousands of times. In fact, the decision to deny procedures is pretty arbitrary and capricious. So, they don't cover everything. Unfortunately, for the consumer, they often don't find out about this denial until after the procedure was done, which has caused many consumers to believe it was more about expense than the degree of experimentation.

Your analogy of Jiffy Lube is totally off the mark and inaccurate. Medical tort claims account for less than 1% of the medical costs. So, using your Jiffy Lube analogy, your $25 Jiffy Lube work would instead cost $25.25. That's a bump of one quarter. That probably favorably compares to the tort costs of a typical Jiffy Lube now, without the comparison to medical tort costs.

Your analogy of health insurance companies with auto insurance companies is also factually wrong. You picked two very similar insurances, as far as degrees of coverage are concerned. Both have deductibles. Many times auto insurance even has larger deductibles. Both insurances pay most all costs of loss, unless intentionally limited. Autos have liability, comprehensive and collision coverages. Also, uninsured motorists, window glass, medical coverage, car rental coverage, etc. That's about as complete coverage as you can get. Comprehensive and collision can be offered with no deductible. Liabilities are limited by the amount the consumer choses. I have over $1 million coverage. That's pretty complete. Most health insurnace coverage isn't anywhere near as complete. They have deductibles, coinsurnace, in or out of plan coverages, pre-existing condition exclusions, experimental treatment exclusions, excessive cost exclusions, etc. My point being, many auto insurance coverages are more complete and comprehensive.

As far as pooling is concerned, the Federal sanctioned monopolies offer a far larger pool of customers for health insurance companies. There are far more competing auto insurance companies. In fact, one of the cost saving reasons health insurance companies gave for wanting sanctioned monopolies was because of the greatest size of pools possible. There was a lot of BS behind that one.

Your statement about coverage for oil changes is not relevant to the cost of insurance issue. You are speculating, and I think incorrectly. I have about as complete auto insurance as you can have, and I have found that my rental car coverage has allowed a FAR CHEAPER cost for rental cars. In fact, I am using that feature of my insurnace on 2/23. The car rental, for a new mid-size car is only $30/day. Far cheaper than if I had tried to rent it myself. The insurance company actually worked and negotiated to hold the cost of rental cars down. Which brings me back to health insurance companies. Their motives are totally different. They have their monopoly and don't care about cost. In fact, they profit more from inflated prices. That's because they set profit margins for services, and you make more profit on a big cost than on a little one.

Health insurance companies are not working for the benefit of their customers. Did you miss the point of the post, that Anthem insurance was raising the cost of their product by enormous percentages, despite the fact they were making astronomically increasing profits. These ridiculously increasing profits were occuring while they lost (or more appropriately kicked off) 2.7 million customers. That means escalating profits off each customer. Their overhead was at least 25% of all their premiums. There's nothing about caring or competing in that picture. It's all about profit maximization. On the face of this, your argument is defeated. You stipulated that without good service, customers are lost and profits decline. Well, this flies in the face of that. This company lost customers and profits skyrocketed. Needless to say, I don't agree with your argument. Your conclusion is wrong because your facts and explanations are wrong. I believe it was FDR who said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. I think you need to rethink your pitch here and correct your facts and/or adjust your conclusions.

Your pitch to go back to individually purchased health insurance is also bogus because millions of people already do that today. Unfortunately, they pay the highest rates in the country. Your argument is circular and contradictory. While you talk about the reduced costs of insurance because of pooling, you reduce the pool by making people buy policies individually? It is the group rates through employers that have given the greatly reduced prices, even though they are still too high. The power of large buyers helps with cost control. Insurance companies risk losing major sales when these conglomerated buyers are looking for coverage and rates. This even points out how the most cost effective way to cover people is through a single-payer. There is only one buyer, and insurance companies can take it or leave it. Competition really takes hold in this model because higher prices in each case means loss of that business. And the companies couldn't afford to lose all business from that single-buyer. So, if you like competition in companies, single-payer offers the MOST and purest competition among companies

The MOST competition in the single-payer system is born out by the far far cheaper health care systems of ALL of the other industrialized countries. Also, even though those countries cover ALL their people and have no bankruptsies due to health care, the cost for their health care is aboutone-halfours, where 17% are not covered at all. In addition, 62% of all the bankruptsies in the US are caused by health care expenses. And of the 62%, 74% of those had health insurance coverage. For many people, the only reason they have not been bankrupted by health care costs, is because they have been lucky enough to never have experienced a major illness requiring extensive professional care.

[Jonathan Kovaciny]

Jonathon, you forget that health insurance companies have a federal and state sanctioned monopoly. So, in most cases there is either no, or at least very little, competition. They risk no loss of customers because they have a captive audience.

I didn't forget that Dan. That was the point of almost my entire post, and I'm not sure how you missed it. The insurance companies are in bed with the government (using govt to crush their smaller competition via regulations, licensing requirements, and other means).

What you call government interference is not accurate. Health insurance companies asked/insisted they needed monopolies to give competitive prices to customers. So, the government granted the sanctioned monopolies. The government didn't interfere, insurance companies asked for the help. They got it.

The government is interfering with the normal operation of the marketplace. The health insurance companies are using the force of government to limit their competition so that they can charge more than they could otherwise make in a free and open market.

Maybe at the time, it was well intentioned, but the insurance companies now abuse that power. As a side, the Congress has talked about separate legislation to revoke the monopoy sanction, but the effort has been heartily resisted by the health insurance industry and Republicans. Insurnace companies have funneled millions of dollars to stop that effort.

Of course it's resisted by the health insurance industry. As for Republicans, that doesn't sound like the sort of Republican I'd vote for. Monopoly privileges for any company or industry are in clear and direct opposition to the Republican party platform, at least in this state:"MNGOP 2008 Platform, Section 1, Subsection I: [We support a] fair and honest competitive business environment and therefore we oppose corporate welfare."
Also, your statement about risk is not correct. Health insurnace companies often deny many many coverages as "experimental," even though these procedures have been done thousands of times. In fact, the decision to deny procedures is pretty arbitrary and capricious. So, they don't cover everything. Unfortunately, for the consumer, they often don't find out about this denial until after the procedure was done, which has caused many consumers to believe it was more about expense than the degree of experimentation.

If the market were not so distorted (and competition not so restricted) thanks to government intervention, it would be much easier to purchase insurance that covered what you needed it to cover and did not cover what you didn't see a need for. Insurance companies, in order to attract business, would begin to advertise their low claim-denial rates. Ratings organizations (like MorningStar or Consumer Reports) would offer their perspective on the best insurance companies for various types of health care consumers. Etc.

Your analogy of Jiffy Lube is totally off the mark and inaccurate. Medical tort claims account for less than 1% of the medical costs. So, using your Jiffy Lube analogy, your $25 Jiffy Lube work would instead cost $25.25. That's a bump of one quarter. That probably favorably compares to the tort costs of a typical Jiffy Lube now, without the comparison to medical tort costs.

That's why it was added as an afterthought to the other several paragraphs which you ignored. But that's your m.o., so I'm used to it.

I realize that tort costs are not a huge part of medical care. Whether it's only 1% is debatable though, as many medical procedures are performed largely to limit the provider's legal liability. For example, we have a c-section rate of around 30%. One of the many reasons that rate is so high is because a doctor who attempts a c-section is harder to sue for fetal or maternal death than one who didn't try it, because it looks like the doctor was at least trying to do something. However, the c-section itself is major surgery and probably puts more mothers and babies at risk.

Your analogy of health insurance companies with auto insurance companies is also factually wrong. You picked two very similar insurances, as far as degrees of coverage are concerned. Both have deductibles. Many times auto insurance even has larger deductibles. Both insurances pay most all costs of loss, unless intentionally limited. Autos have liability, comprehensive and collision coverages. Also, uninsured motorists, window glass, medical coverage, car rental coverage, etc. That's about as complete coverage as you can get. Comprehensive and collision can be offered with no deductible. Liabilities are limited by the amount the consumer choses. I have over $1 million coverage. That's pretty complete. Most health insurnace coverage isn't anywhere near as complete. They have deductibles, coinsurnace, in or out of plan coverages, pre-existing condition exclusions, experimental treatment exclusions, excessive cost exclusions, etc. My point being, many auto insurance coverages are more complete and comprehensive.

And that's my point, thank you. Auto insurance is not nearly so riddled with government interventions. Auto insurance is a cutthroat industry with very low profit margins -- there are a lot of providers to choose from, a lot of options to choose from, and relatively little government intervention.

As far as pooling is concerned, the Federal sanctioned monopolies offer a far larger pool of customers for health insurance companies. There are far more competing auto insurance companies. In fact, one of the cost saving reasons health insurance companies gave for wanting sanctioned monopolies was because of the greatest size of pools possible. There was a lot of BS behind that one.

I think you (and the monopoly-protection-seeking insurance companies) have the cart before the horse here, unless I'm misunderstanding you. Consumers choose whether to buy or not to buy from insurance companies, not the other way around. The fewer insurance companies there are, the higher our prices as consumers.

Your statement about coverage for oil changes is not relevant to the cost of insurance issue. You are speculating, and I think incorrectly. I have about as complete auto insurance as you can have, and I have found that my rental car coverage has allowed a FAR CHEAPER cost for rental cars. In fact, I am using that feature of my insurnace on 2/23. The car rental, for a new mid-size car is only $30/day. Far cheaper than if I had tried to rent it myself. The insurance company actually worked and negotiated to hold the cost of rental cars down.

My point was about mandated coverages. When the state requires insurance companies to cover anything, the product you are purchasing from the "insurance" company is no longer insurance but a third-party payment system.

If your currently-awesome car insurance was required to cover oil changes your insurance premiums would be far higher, and your actual cost for an oil change would skyrocket, and you would probably get more oil changes than you really need.

Which brings me back to health insurance companies. Their motives are totally different. They have their monopoly and don't care about cost. In fact, they profit more from inflated prices. That's because they set profit margins for services, and you make more profit on a big cost than on a little one.

Again, that's my point.

Health insurance companies are not working for the benefit of their customers. Did you miss the point of the post, that Anthem insurance was raising the cost of their product by enormous percentages, despite the fact they were making astronomically increasing profits. These ridiculously increasing profits were occuring while they lost (or more appropriately kicked off) 2.7 million customers. That means escalating profits off each customer. Their overhead was at least 25% of all their premiums. There's nothing about caring or competing in that picture. It's all about profit maximization.

Again, that's my point.

On the face of this, your argument is defeated.

Heh.

[continued in next post]

[Jonathan Kovaciny]

You stipulated that without good service, customers are lost and profits decline. Well, this flies in the face of that. This company lost customers and profits skyrocketed.

In a free market, without good service and good prices, customers are lost and profits decline. Note that I emphasized the first four words of the previous sentence. You may have missed it.

Needless to say, I don't agree with your argument. Your conclusion is wrong because your facts and explanations are wrong. I believe it was FDR who said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. I think you need to rethink your pitch here and correct your facts and/or adjust your conclusions.

I suggest that you listen to what I actually say instead of what you assume that I have said.

Your pitch to go back to individually purchased health insurance is also bogus because millions of people already do that today. Unfortunately, they pay the highest rates in the country.

And I gave the reason for why they pay the highest rates, but you seem to have missed it. Let me restate it for your benefit: Individuals pay high rates because the lower group-negotiated insurance premiums are now a condition of full-time employment; that situation came about because of government-mandated wage controls in the 1940s. My suggestion is that we separate health insurance purchasing from employment benefits. If most people also had auto-insurance coverage through their employers, it would be similarly cost-prohibitive to purchase individual auto insurance as well.

Your argument is circular and contradictory.

If you say so.

While you talk about the reduced costs of insurance because of pooling, you reduce the pool by making people buy policies individually? It is the group rates through employers that have given the greatly reduced prices, even though they are still too high. The power of large buyers helps with cost control. Insurance companies risk losing major sales when these conglomerated buyers are looking for coverage and rates.

If you and 100 of your neighbors want to get together to negotiate lower auto insurance rates, that's fine with me. However, you'll have a hard time convincing the safer drivers (and especially the non-drivers) to jump in on your plan, since their costs will likely go up to subsidize the costs of the riskier drivers in the pool. Similarly, if there were only 5 auto insurance companies who could legally sell insurance in Minnesota, your costs would also go up because of the reduced competition.

This even points out how the most cost effective way to cover people is through a single-payer. There is only one buyer, and insurance companies can take it or leave it. Competition really takes hold in this model because higher prices in each case means loss of that business. And the companies couldn't afford to lose all business from that single-buyer. So, if you like competition in companies, single-payer offers the MOST and purest competition among companies

No, it doesn't. The more buyers you have, the more competition there is for the seller's goods and services. The more sellers you have, the more competition there is for the buyers' dollars. Eliminating either side of this equation results in reduced competition, not to mention reduced freedom of choice.

The MOST competition in the single-payer system is born out by the far far cheaper health care systems of ALL of the other industrialized countries. Also, even though those countries cover ALL their people and have no bankruptsies due to health care, the cost for their health care is aboutone-halfours, where 17% are not covered at all. In addition, 62% of all the bankruptsies in the US are caused by health care expenses. And of the 62%, 74% of those had health insurance coverage. For many people, the only reason they have not been bankrupted by health care costs, is because they have been lucky enough to never have experienced a major illness requiring extensive professional care.

In these systems, the costs are largely shifted from those who actually receive the care to everyone, so the true costs are hidden. Also, the U.S. heavily subsidizes many of these countries with military protection and other forms of aid, which frees up more of their tax revenues for social programs like health care coverage. Also, many of these countries are adopting more market-based reforms in order to control costs and restore consumer choice, just as we are going in the opposite direction. Also, the U.S. already has a majority of health care dollars flowing through government hands, with the remaining dollars subject to massive regulations.

I am aware that our system sucks. Adding more government to the mix will just make it suck more and cost more.

[Jonathan Kovaciny]

There's a good article on the economics of government involvement in the health care industry here (http://mises.org/daily/3586).

[Dan Conner]

There's a good article on the economics of government involvement in the health care industry here (http://mises.org/daily/3586).Well, last night, I wrote a quite lengthy reply to your description of the health care problem, but when the combined length of yours and my posts exceeded the allowable length, I decided to erase it. I then thought about your health care screed and decided a much shorter reply was called for.

Almost your entire conjecture about health care and the economic underpinnings are wrong and superficial. While you sometimes make an obviously correct statement, you either extrapolate incorrectly or you draw wild conclusions that are not born out by the facts. I believe you deduce through a rationalization process to serve your belief, but not the facts.

What I would like to do first, is suggest you go to a local library, or look on the internet at a basic book on macreconomics. Then, I suggest you read the part that has to do with demand. Simplisticly, demand can be discussed in two polar opposite extremes. There is elastic and inelastic demands, with variations in the contiuum between them. In the case of extreme inelastic demand, price and quality of a product/service can fluctuate wildly, but demand is relatively unaffected. I think you have seen some of that with the price of gas. While it's price went up drasticly in the last few years, it's demand stayed high, with little drop. So much so, that the economy was suffering for the price of it.

Well, health care is even more inelastic tha gas. It is used as a example, in many books, as an illustration of a product/service with almost virtually inelastic demand. Understandably so. People are generally concerned about their life and will go to whatever lengths are necessary to preserve it. If you could only be more observant, you could understand that without knowing about the economics. Since health care/insurance cause 62% of all the bankruptsies in the US, it is not too difficult to understand that people seek the service and products in health care, regardless of price. This factor of economics is what blows a great big gaping hole in your conjecture about what should be done with health care. It is also why regulation is a good idea. Businesses are enhancing profits off the public needs for health insurance. Monopolies are even worse, because profit maximization occurs at ridiculously high levels of profit for companies and ridicukously high levels of suffering for the customers. Our economy has reached that level long ago. Currently, people in our country spend more than $1 out of $6 generated in the entire economy (GDP) on health care. It is expected that in the near future health care will reach 20% of GDP. It will continue until it breaks our entire economy. It will see us to third-world status. Understandably, the desire to live is one of the strongest needs of all mankind. The only product/service I can think of with a more inelastic demand is heroine for a heroine addict. I think there are plenty of illustrations about what that person will do to get his/her product.

The unbridled greed of the health insurance industry, not "interference of government" and the great and overwhelming need of people to live, are what is determining the price of health care. I would judge you would be an integral part of that if had had significant health problems. If you don't, you are lucky.

That is why health care, particularly for a country of our wealth and means, should be an inalienable human right, not the subject of simplistic and flawed experiments of the political right. Even doctors don't gamble with patients lives, unless there is no other hope. So why do you? People need and want health care to live. That is not meant to be an industry of profit. It is meant to be an industry of human right.

Not only are your economic ruminations about health care wrong, they are harmful to human life. Discussion of the econoimics of it is fine, but first have at least a basic understanding of economics, or at least better economic observation. The world isn't as simplistic as you make it out to be. Throw in the additional ingredient of playing with people's lives, and you are treading on a cataclysmic human disaster.

I suggest you start with the premise of doing no harm and caring about other people. Back those up with correct and more knowledgable economic assertions, and you will be on starting on the right way to solving the health care problem. There are too many people today who rationalize denying people health care with some overly silly simplistic and flawed economics, all in a selfish effort to avoid paying taxes. It's sentencing people to die for a self-serving and selfish reason. More than 45,000 people die each year in our country for the silly lack of health insurance. If that were the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, the public would be revolting.

I would ask that you not only use more accurate and better thought out economic principles, but I suggest you start caring. Maybe you need to reason through to a decision, instead of let some misguided belief rationalize twisted simplistic economic assertions that are dead wrong. I guess, what I'm saying is get informed.

[Dennis Mikkelson]

Well, last night, I wrote a quite lengthy reply to your description of the health care problem, but when the combined length of yours and my posts exceeded the allowable length, I decided to erase it. I then thought about your health care screed and decided a much shorter reply was called for.

Almost your entire conjecture about health care and the economic underpinnings are wrong and superficial. While you sometimes make an obviously correct statement, you either extrapolate incorrectly or you draw wild conclusions that are not born out by the facts. I believe you deduce through a rationalization process to serve your belief, but not the facts.

What I would like to do first, is suggest you go to a local library, or look on the internet at a basic book on macreconomics. Then, I suggest you read the part that has to do with demand. Simplisticly, demand can be discussed in two polar opposite extremes. There is elastic and inelastic demands, with variations in the contiuum between them. In the case of extreme inelastic demand, price and quality of a product/service can fluctuate wildly, but demand is relatively unaffected. I think you have seen some of that with the price of gas. While it's price went up drasticly in the last few years, it's demand stayed high, with little drop. So much so, that the economy was suffering for the price of it.

Well, health care is even more inelastic tha gas. It is used as a example, in many books, as an illustration of a product/service with almost virtually inelastic demand. Understandably so. People are generally concerned about their life and will go to whatever lengths are necessary to preserve it. If you could only be more observant, you could understand that without knowing about the economics. Since health care/insurance cause 62% of all the bankruptsies in the US, it is not too difficult to understand that people seek the service and products in health care, regardless of price. This factor of economics is what blows a great big gaping hole in your conjecture about what should be done with health care. It is also why regulation is a good idea. Businesses are enhancing profits off the public needs for health insurance. Monopolies are even worse, because profit maximization occurs at ridiculously high levels of profit for companies and ridicukously high levels of suffering for the customers. Our economy has reached that level long ago. Currently, people in our country spend more than $1 out of $6 generated in the entire economy (GDP) on health care. It is expected that in the near future health care will reach 20% of GDP. It will continue until it breaks our entire economy. It will see us to third-world status. Understandably, the desire to live is one of the strongest needs of all mankind. The only product/service I can think of with a more inelastic demand is heroine for a heroine addict. I think there are plenty of illustrations about what that person will do to get his/her product.

The unbridled greed of the health insurance industry, not "interference of government" and the great and overwhelming need of people to live, are what is determining the price of health care. I would judge you would be an integral part of that if had had significant health problems. If you don't, you are lucky.

That is why health care, particularly for a country of our wealth and means, should be an inalienable human right, not the subject of simplistic and flawed experiments of the political right. Even doctors don't gamble with patients lives, unless there is no other hope. So why do you? People need and want health care to live. That is not meant to be an industry of profit. It is meant to be an industry of human right.

Not only are your economic ruminations about health care wrong, they are harmful to human life. Discussion of the econoimics of it is fine, but first have at least a basic understanding of economics, or at least better economic observation. The world isn't as simplistic as you make it out to be. Throw in the additional ingredient of playing with people's lives, and you are treading on a cataclysmic human disaster.

I suggest you start with the premise of doing no harm and caring about other people. Back those up with correct and more knowledgable economic assertions, and you will be on starting on the right way to solving the health care problem. There are too many people today who rationalize denying people health care with some overly silly simplistic and flawed economics, all in a selfish effort to avoid paying taxes. It's sentencing people to die for a self-serving and selfish reason. More than 45,000 people die each year in our country for the silly lack of health insurance. If that were the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, the public would be revolting.

I would ask that you not only use more accurate and better thought out economic principles, but I suggest you start caring. Maybe you need to reason through to a decision, instead of let some misguided belief rationalize twisted simplistic economic assertions that are dead wrong. I guess, what I'm saying is get informed.

If you read the total articles on health related bankruptcies on google it is 20%, the real problem is paying premiums with credit cards that causes the problem.

[Dan Conner]

If you read the total articles on health related bankruptcies on google it is 20%, the real problem is paying premiums with credit cards that causes the problem.That doesn't make any difference. If is health care that is causing the bankruptsy, what ever way premiums are being paid. And premium payments are a small part of the bankruptsy problem. It is the huge medical bill still left after the insurance has either paid what is required, or the amount after the insurance company has denied payment because of the factors I have previousoly given. I don't know what you googled, but a 2005 Harvard study revealed medical care causes over 50% of the bankruptsies. I think it would be a good idea for you to furnish your google resource. Nothing I have seen indicates 20%. In fact, I believe there is a more recent study, showing the 62% I talked about earlier.

I'll tell you what, you find your reference and I'll find mine, Ohh, guess what? I found a website saying that medical care caused 62% of the bankruptsies (it was the first item on my google search):

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/health/2009/06/health-care-bankruptcy-on-rise-medical-debt-medical-bills-how-to-avoid-bankruptcy.html

[Bob Jentges]

Thank you for linking the DiLorenzo article, Jonathon. It clearly states what my basic philosophy has been in this health care reform debate since the onset in other threads. Dan did not indicate he read the link; he seldom reads what others link.

I do not blame you for not responding th Dan's post #7, Jonathon. I found that he made few substantive points relating to your post. I classify Dan's post #7 as hyperbole with what could be considered as irrelivent abstract theory mixed in, along with his familiar "caring for others" mantra when he thinks the debate might be slipping away---as if those he is debating with are people who do not care for others.

For example, Dan cites a 2007 study indicating that 62% of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by a lack of health insurance/care. If he chooses to get into a battle of links, I found a 2009 study by Tal Gross of Miami University and Matthew J. Notowidigdo of MIT indicating out-of-pocket medical expenses play a part in roughly 26% of bankruptcies of low income households, and there was no evidence they might not have filed anyway.
http://www.nber.org/~notom/papers/Gross_Notowidigdo_20090921.pdf

The above referenced "study" of low income households did not include those on Medicaid, for obvious reasons.

As another example, Dan said more than 45,000 people die each year in our country for lack of health insurance. He cites nothing to support his statement. In the March 2010 theAtlantic (no right wing publication by any stretch) medical editor Megan McCardle wrote her research found there is no significantly elevated risk of death among the uninsured.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/insurance-coverage-mortality

Since I seem to be on a roll, both you, Jonathon, and Dan use car insurance in your posts. I agree with you Jonathon, that car insurance is relatively speaking inexpensive because of free market competition. Dan listed many of the available coverages in car insurance, but he did not mention one that is mandatory in Minnesota---Personal Injury Protection (PIP) A/K/A no fault coverage. Maybe there is a connection between car insurance costs, with PIP, and government run health care. I will try to make that connection.

In the mid '70's the State of Minnesota passed it's car no fault law. It was sold to us by the legislature with the claim it would reduce car insurance premiums by reducing the number of lawsuits. About a dozen states and Washington D.C. mandated car no fault coverage at about the same time as Minnesota. Statistics show that states where car no fault was mandated premiums increased 92% faster and on average are 25% greater than in states with traditional tort liability law.

Since 1980 a number of states, and Washington D.C. repealed their mandatory car no fault laws. In those states car insurance premiums have been reduced; 15% or more.

Not only was mandatory car no fault coverage an infringement on individual rights, it was not the utopia that was promised.

After about 30 years of mandatory car no fault insurance I think the only logical conclusion is that the system has been a failure with respect to lowering car insurance premiums. There is at least anecdotal evidence that there is about the same number of uninsured drivers in Minnesota as there was prior to mandatory car no fault insurance.

Some state regulation in insurance, whether it be car, home, business, etc., is probably necessary. But the way I see it the more government intrudes in what you, Jonathon, referred to as "REAL" insurance and tries to move the country toward government run health insurance (social insurance), the more likely for price increases and other adverse unintended consequences.

[Dan Conner]

Thank you for linking the DiLorenzo article, Jonathon. It clearly states what my basic philosophy has been in this health care reform debate since the onset in other threads. Dan did not indicate he read the link; he seldom reads what others link.

I do not blame you for not responding th Dan's post #7, Jonathon. I found that he made few substantive points relating to your post. I classify Dan's post #7 as hyperbole with what could be considered as irrelivent abstract theory mixed in, along with his familiar "caring for others" mantra when he thinks the debate might be slipping away---as if those he is debating with people who do not care for others.

For example, Dan cites a 2007 study indicating that 62% of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by a lack of health insurance/care. If he chooses to get into a battle of links, I found a 2009 study by Tal Gross of Miami University and Matthew J. Notowidigdo of MIT indicating out-of-pocket medical expenses play a part in roughly 26% of bankruptcies of low income households, and there was no evidence they might not have filed anyway.
http://www.nber.org/~notom/papers/Gross_Notowidigdo_20090921.pdf

As another example, Dan said more than 45,000 people die each year in our country for lack of health insurance. He cites nothing to support his statement. In the March 2010 theAtlantic (no right wing publication by any stretch) medical editor Megan McCardle wrote her research found there is no significantly elevated risk of death among the uninsured.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/insurance-coverage-mortality

I agree with you Jonathon, that car insurance is relatively speaking inexpensive because of free market competition. Dan listed many of the available coverages in car insurance, but he did not mention one that is mandatory in Minnesota---Personal Injury Protection (PIP) A/K/A no fault coverage. Maybe there is a connection between car insurance costs, with PIP, and government run health care. I will try to make that connection.

Some state regulation in insurance, whether it be car, home, business, etc., is probably necessary. But the way I see it the more government intrudes in what you, Jonathon, referred to as "REAL" insurance and tries to move the country toward government run health insurance (social insurance), the more likely for price increases and other adverse unintended consequences. I redacted some of your screed to allow for this response. Well, I see you are still at trying to curry favor with others to keep your dependent support system. How else can you competently argue your point. Let's see, you whine to Jonathon, now Dennis, Joe, the public in general, etc. You need just a big security blanket. Now, you rant in areas unrelated to the thread, and instead "rally your troops" for another foolish and non-sensical stand. Your rallies are the Don Quixote of the forum., and an insucure one at that. Blend your insecurity in with a poor research...walla...Bob.

The most disappointing part of your post is making unsubstantiated accusations about me not reading your links. I have read most all that I can remeber, even if many of them were written with very biased right-wing bias. Unfortunately, while you search internet-wide for anything to support your myoptic views, you refuse to base your beliefs in common knowledge. But you go ahead Bob. Attack me all you like, I realize you have very few intelligent ideas. I think that's why you resort to these personal attacks.

I think of you as the 98-pound bully in the kids playground. You try to bully, but you are just too much of a lightweight. You resort to defending your extremely selfish and self-righteous views, as if that is a benefit and you are acting as a patriot. All I can say is... NOT!! You are just a selfish person who would rather kick someone into the ditch, if helping would cost you a dime. Then, you rationalize your giving spirt by saying you donate to charities? Yeah sure. As if others don't donate. Sorry Bob, but rationalizing not wanting to pay taxes to help others, by saying you give charities don't work. I think most people can see through that.

I feel good about caring for others, it's too bad you don't. But then I guess you are happy with your me-me attitude. Then, you foolishly mention your link that even erodes your very prejudiced point of view, as rather silly. You seem to be chronically challenged in researching issues. I'm sure your prejudiced/selfish background has something to do with that. Your attached statement said, "I found a 2009 study by Tal Gross of Miami University and Matthew J. Notowidigdo of MIT indicating out-of-pocket medical expenses play a part in roughly 26% of bankruptcies of low income households, and there was no evidence they might not have filed anyway." There was no definition of "out-of-pocket expenses". Then the alleged MIT research mentioned the 26% oflow income housholds where bankruptsy might have been filed anyway. How about all the middle income people bankrupted? Did you forget them? The 62% figure I refer to is of ALL[B][U] households, not excluding those other than low income. You are uninformed to believe that bankruptsy only happens for low income families. I suggest you get better informed. Trying to find narrowly defined bankrupsy statistics in an effort to mask the truth, that 62% of ALL bankruptsies are caused by health care costs - tsk-tsk. This post just undermined your position. I thought you were more capable than this. Come on Bob, you can't be that ignorant, can you? I think you are trying to twist facts to conceal the ugly truth, but maybe I'm flattering you.

I have previously cited links to the substantiated statistic of 45,000 people dyiung a year for lack of health insurance, and I don't chose to give it again, just because you can't remember. However, this stunning revelation on your part shows you do not read my posts or links. If someone else would like it, I will furnish it/them, but Bob there is not excuse for you not to remember.

Bob, your screed about car insurance is irrelavant to this thread. Also, comparing it to health insurance is comparing apples and oranges. Its demand is not as inelastic as health care. Besides, I never mentioned it, except in reply to Jonathon referencing it. You say you are reading or following the "posts," but it doesn't seem so. You baselessly accuse, which childish playground bullying.

Your reponse is kind of a joke when you talk about "real" insurance. Tell me Bob, what is that? I suppose you have your personal distorted definition of that too. The dictionary doesn't say anything about "real" insurance being relegated to the private or public domains. It only means a contract to insure, etc. It is only your perverted view that defines it otherwise. Besides, I thought you were such a stickler for definitions? Why don't you use them? "Real", what a joke. Is this just more Republican hypocrisy? Definitions are only for others to follow? And look how well "real" insurance companies have done...the largest insurer in the world, AIG, is totally bankrupt, received over $200 billion from the government to keep it, and our other financial houses, afloat. Now, it is substantively owned by the government. Health care insurance?...that brings me back to what this thread is all about. Anthem (Blue Cross) has escalated premiums over 100% in the last 2 years while realizing an [B][U]8 fold increase in its profits. Somehow, that is not reducing cost to me. In fact, it is extortion. Where do you come from Bob? You use feelings, despite objective evidence showing you are all wet, to justify your myoptic views. These companies, along with plethora of other major insurance companies, are pillaging our country of its wealth. It is not longer about carring about people it's about maximizing profits. Try not to be such an insurnace company "lap dog."

You are totally wrong about the cost of health care costs in government run programs. In fact, if you had even bothered to research your imagined facts, you would see that costs of medical care paid for by Medicare is a lot lower than the costs of medical care with private insurance. In fact, doctors many times complain about the low Medicare reimbursement rates.

Also, mandatory insurance laws were passed in the state to help prevent uninsured motorists from inflicting grievous harm to accident victims and then leaving them with no avenue of financial redress or payment of medical bills. It wasn't done to lower insurance rates. It was done to help people, as foreign to you as that might sound. I'm sure rates did go up some, but that was to mitigate damage done to faultless injured victims. I thought that would know that, having worked for the insurnace industry. Meanwhile, I could care less about your irrelevant car insurance puffery. Let that discussion happen in an auto insurance thread. However, good try interloper Bob, I'm sure you will impress someone.

Bob, I have read and considered your comments. While your car insurance statistical facts sound OK at first glance (I haven't researched), your conclusions are not. You're wrong about medical expense of government vs private, you're wrong about the purpose of mandatory car insurance, you're wrong about the "free market" forces in medical care, and you certainly have not proved at all that government increases cost of car or health insurnace. In fact, there is considerable evidence to prove otherwise. I think you need to work on your hypothesizing and stop obsessing about the "black helicopters." You get some statistics right, but come to goofy and silly conclusions...a sign of a deep and abiding prejudice.

[Bob Jentges]

Thank you for linking the DiLorenzo article, Jonathon. It clearly states what my basic philosophy has been in this health care reform debate since the onset in other threads. Dan did not indicate he read the link; he seldom reads what others link.

I do not blame you for not responding th Dan's post #7, Jonathon. I found that he made few substantive points relating to your post. I classify Dan's post #7 as hyperbole with what could be considered as irrelivent abstract theory mixed in, along with his familiar "caring for others" mantra when he thinks the debate might be slipping away---as if those he is debating with are people who do not care for others.

For example, Dan cites a 2007 study indicating that 62% of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by a lack of health insurance/care. If he chooses to get into a battle of links, I found a 2009 study by Tal Gross of Miami University and Matthew J. Notowidigdo of MIT indicating out-of-pocket medical expenses play a part in roughly 26% of bankruptcies of low income households, and there was no evidence they might not have filed anyway.
http://www.nber.org/~notom/papers/Gross_Notowidigdo_20090921.pdf

The above referenced "study" of low income households did not include those on Medicaid, for obvious reasons.

As another example, Dan said more than 45,000 people die each year in our country for lack of health insurance. He cites nothing to support his statement. In the March 2010 theAtlantic (no right wing publication by any stretch) medical editor Megan McCardle wrote her research found there is no significantly elevated risk of death among the uninsured.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/insurance-coverage-mortality

Since I seem to be on a roll, both you, Jonathon, and Dan use car insurance in your posts. I agree with you Jonathon, that car insurance is relatively speaking inexpensive because of free market competition. Dan listed many of the available coverages in car insurance, but he did not mention one that is mandatory in Minnesota---Personal Injury Protection (PIP) A/K/A no fault coverage. Maybe there is a connection between car insurance costs, with PIP, and government run health care. I will try to make that connection.

In the mid '70's the State of Minnesota passed it's car no fault law. It was sold to us by the legislature with the claim it would reduce car insurance premiums by reducing the number of lawsuits. About a dozen states and Washington D.C. mandated car no fault coverage at about the same time as Minnesota. Statistics show that states where car no fault was mandated premiums increased 92% faster and on average are 25% greater than in states with traditional tort liability law.

Since 1980 a number of states, and Washington D.C. repealed their mandatory car no fault laws. In those states car insurance premiums have been reduced; 15% or more.

Not only was mandatory car no fault coverage an infringement on individual rights, it was not the utopia that was promised.

After about 30 years of mandatory car no fault insurance I think the only logical conclusion is that the system has been a failure with respect to lowering car insurance premiums. There is at least anecdotal evidence that there is about the same number of uninsured drivers in Minnesota as there was prior to mandatory car no fault insurance.

Some state regulation in insurance, whether it be car, home, business, etc., is probably necessary. But the way I see it the more government intrudes in what you, Jonathon, referred to as "REAL" insurance and tries to move the country toward government run health insurance (social insurance), the more likely for price increases and other adverse unintended consequences.

I will not reply direct to Dan Conner's post #11, which consists mostly of his often repeated inaccurate charactizations of me as a person. To reply to those would be repeating myself.

He says he "redacted" some of my post in his Quote of that post preceeding his remarks in his post #11. That is OK with me because he can not redact my origional post. I considered redacting everything in his lengthy tirade (my guess is in the area of 1500 words) that were inaccurate characterizations of me as a person, and reply only to his mischaracterizations of what I said and my reasons for saying it, but that would take more time than I want to put into this thing now.

So I decided that if anyone is still reading this thread it would be easier to simply quote my entire post #10 so they could read it and compare it with his replies about my positions on the substantive issues.

If anyone is bored enough to do that they can form their own conclusions. But I suggest you not wait to long because the tunnel vision king of turning things upside down is probably at his keyboard as you read this!

[Dan Conner]

I will not reply direct to Dan Conner's post #11, which consists mostly of his often repeated inaccurate charactizations of me as a person. To reply to those would be repeating myself.

He says he "redacted" some of my post in his Quote of that post preceeding his remarks in his post #11. That is OK with me because he can not redact my origional post. I considered redacting everything in his lengthy tirade (my guess is in the area of 1500 words) that were inaccurate characterizations of me as a person, and reply only to his mischaracterizations of what I said and my reasons for saying it, but that would take more time than I want to put into this thing now.

So I decided that if anyone is still reading this thread it would be easier to simply quote my entire post #10 so they could read it and compare it with his replies about my positions on the substantive issues.

If anyone is bored enough to do that they can form their own conclusions. But I suggest you not wait to long because the tunnel vision king of turning things upside down is probably at his keyboard as you read this!

Bob, are you whining about getting more help from your friends on the forum? Can't you stand up for yourself? You seems to need a lot of Forum welfare. Why don't you try to defend yourself? Again, you want to dish it out, but go crying for help as soon as your thin veneer gets nicked. Poor Bob. It's always poor Bob. I think the characterizations of you were spot on. While you might be able to read, you can't comprehend. Your irrelevant study only looked at low income people, and not middle income people, for bankruptsies, but good try, trying to twist another statistic. Do you co-author how to lie with statistics, or researching by dumbies? ha-ha.

Bob, you think so well of yourself. You always were one to aspire to out-of-reach aspirations. However, you just continue to live in your illusion. Of course, you can always try to stop Medicare for everyone else while you make sure you've got everything coming to you. You can even try to do the same for Social Security, but I imagine you would want to continue with your benefit. You don't want to help people without health insurance, but you continue to guiltlessly take yours. Bob, I never realized you are such a me-me person. Well, I guess every society has to have some who want it all for themselves while nixing it for others. Some people call that hypocrisy. I just think it is old-fashioned selfishness.

[Bob Jentges]

Bob, are you whining about getting more help from your friends on the forum?

No I am not. Never have, and never will. It's just an unfounded assumption of yours.

But if someone, anyone, chooses to agree with something I post I think they have that right just like you have the right to disagree with what I post.

[Dan Conner]

No I am not. Never have, and never will. It's just an unfounded assumption of yours.

But if someone, anyone, chooses to agree with something I post I think they have that right just like you have the right to disagree with what I post.Sorry Bob, you are worng again. Just as you poorly hide your hate for unions, you frequently curry favor with your "friends" to help you in your petulent arguments of no substance. You only argue semantics because you seem to lack issues.

[Bob Jentges]

You only argue semantics because you seem to lack issues.

Here is an issue for you to think about. Louise Slaughter (D NY) Chair of the House Rules Committee (also known for the lady wearing dead sisters false teeth comment at the Health Care Reform Summit) has proposed a rule change allowing members to vote for a rule change stating a bill has been assumed as passed, without ever having been voted on.

The issue is, how desperate are the Democrats to ram through the ill-advised health care bill?

I think Newt Gingrich said it all with the comment: "...we've gone from passing bills without reading them to passing bills without voting on them".

[Ben Willaert]

I’ll address the topic of the thread, “Do Health Insurance Companies care about people?” My answer is yes. At least from my experience they do. I have had Medica insurance since 2002. I am really excited about the self help programs they offer. I can earn up to $125 in gift cards per year to stores of my choice simply by helping myself become healthier. They offer courses in all different areas of health, from mental to physical. Taking the courses is easy, and they are very informative. I am healthier because of them, and in the last 3 years I have earned over $200 in gift cards to Target to boot.

[Bob Jentges]

Without going back too many day's since passage of the HCR law to point out other "loop holes" discovered since passage, yesterday we learned that the law adversly effects doctor owned clinics and hospitals and today we learn it does not prevent insurance companies from double digit premium increases; is likely to create a serious doctor shortage; could create lack of insurance for Congress and some staffers.

All this from mainstream media outlets like NYT, WaPo and LAT who strongly supported the bill before passage, but in their usual after the fact "watchdog" manner may have had a change of heart after passage. I guess Speaker Pelosi was prophetic when she said, and I paraphrase: We need to pass the bill so we can learn whats in it. This is what happens when partisan people and the mainstream media blindly favor whatever the Obama Administration tells us poor rubes what is good for us!

Maybe the title of this thread should be changed to: Does the government care about people?

Who wrote this monstrosity; who read it before they voted for it/signed it into law; what incompetence will we learn about next?

Is anyone surprised that a Rasumssen Daily Tracking Poll indicates 58% want the law repealed?

We're from the government and we're here to help you!