The health insurance lobby’s aggressive corporatization of health care – which started in the 1980s when Reagan deregulated the insurance industry- has had devastating effects on the US health care system. As Michael Moore portrays in the film Sicko, it has bankrupted thousands of families. He introduces several families in which a loved one develops a serious illness, only for the family to discover their health policy doesn’t fully cover treatment.
By drastically cutting reimbursement and repeatedly denying claims, the insurance industry has also bankrupted hundreds of hospitals and thousands of doctors (including me). What I find particularly galling is the hundreds of billions of dollars they have spent (over 50 years) to systematically block the expansion of Medicare – a highly popular and cost effective program – to cover America’s forty five million uninsured. Being uninsured kills. According to Physicians for a National Health Plan, every year approximately 100,000 people die prematurely due to their inability to access health care.
The fact that American insurance companies lobby to dismantle national health systems in other industrialized countries (Nicky Hagar writes about their efforts to interfere in the 2005 New Zealand elections in The Hollow Men) is just plain vicious and immoral.
Unfortunately ObamaCare does nothing whatsoever to end insurance company interference in health care. If anything, by requiring that all Americans purchase health insurance, it strengthens their hand by throwing billions of dollars of additional income their way. In this sense it’s more corporate welfare for the ailing insurance industry than true health care reform.
Going Non-Corporate in the Insurance Arena
Given my feelings about the corporate insurance lobby, you can imagine how it painful it was to write them a check every six months for homeowners and (when I owned a car) auto insurance. Their shady history aside, I have always felt there were ethical problems with the for-profit insurance model. In a humane society, no one should profit off other peoples’ misery – be it a serious medication condition, a house fire, or a car crash. In Islamic societies, the Koran forbids it, just as they prohibit usury (lending money at interest). Not only does the obligation to return a profit to shareholders increase premium costs, but there will always be a perverse incentive to deny claims to improve the bottom line.
You can also imagine how thrilled I am to discover that I have an alternative – which is sadly under-publicized. In addition to growing my own food and making my own cleaning and beauty products and bartering and trading for other necessities, I can now go non-corporate in the insurance arena, as well.
I now buy homeowners insurance from a “mutual and cooperative” insurance association (AMI – a New Zealand owned company). Under this model the members (clients) themselves own the insurance company. AMI belongs to an impressive international organization known as the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation, a global organization representing cooperative and mutual insurers from around the world. ICMIF has four official members in the US, which means everyone reading this can do the same when their current term of homeowners/auto insurance expires. I would specifically recommend EMC, Goodville or NAMIC, a broker representing 1,400 companies – as you can purchase insurance directly via the websites below:
ICMIF members:
Shelter (link not working)
Some US mutual/cooperative insurers in the US belong to a second organization, the Americas Association/Cooperative Mutual Insurance Societies or belong to both.
AAC/MIS members:
The American Agricultural Insurance Company http://www.aaic.fb.com
EMC Insurance Companies http://www.emcins.com/
Goodville Mutual Casualty Company http://www.goodville.com/
International Insurance Society http://www.iisonline.org/
National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) http://www.namic.org
Shelter Insurance Companies http://www.shelterinsurance.com/ (link not working)
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