Health insurers giving more consumers 'the finger'

In a post by The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein today, a big time insurance broker gave Wall Street a briefing on plans in the offing by the nation’s larger insurers to take full advantage of their near monopoly status in too many markets.

According to Stein, Steve Lewis of Willis - a very large brokerage - came at the behest of Goldman, Sachs to speak about why the very large health insurers were apparently walking away from certain sectors of their business. This is happening in markets where they have little, if any, competition. They are raising, or planning to raise, prices - as evidenced by the recent attempt by Anthem Blue Cross,Blue Shield in California- and when the market won’t bear it, too bad.

The new business model is “if you can’t afford us, do without.”

You’d think insurance companies would be running scared in light of the last years war over health care reform. You’d think - on a normal planet - that they’d be trying everything in the book to make nice and convince everybody that they’re our best friend.

Maybe they also think that they have all the money, and all the lobbyists they need to cover anything they want to do.

Lobbyists, politicians who feed from them and insurance companies should all go hand in hand to that special place in hell.