To fully understand the healthcare debacle one needs to look into who is benefiting the most from the mandate.
As it has always been in government there are a few beneficiaries, from large corporations to politicians, but rarely the people whose tax dollars pay for those decisions to be made in their interest.
A few months ago I was researching about how health insurance came about and found out that the very first health insurance company was Blue Cross Blue Shield. Hospitals were not attracting enough customers so based on the concept that women would spend small amounts on cosmetics every single month they decided to charge small amounts on a prepaid system for hospital used and called it Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
Years later, here we are with a mandate for health insurance. It’s no longer a choice, they got tired of having to compete for our business and decided to name it a right…one which the ones who make any money at all would pay for those who don’t, thus guaranteeing the use of the system.
As the months went by and the new mandate became too burdensome for some smaller insurance carriers, they slowly dropped off the government-funded exchanges and peculiarly enough one company now dominates the market across the Country: Blue Cross Blue Shields. What an interesting coincidence, don’t you think?
Well, curious me had to dig a little further and get a better picture of this company’s relationship with our government and elected officials. The general right-wing’s belief that the mandate’s only goal was to further the socialist agenda, and left-wing’s claim that health care is a right works in the minds of those who still believe there is a right wing and a left wing, which I don’t. Follow the money is usually a better way to identify the culprit when it comes to government, they just use the right vs left ideology to keep us from digging into their real motives.
And since we’re talking about health care….the blue pill and the red pill are made by the same lab.
I’ve found opensecrets.org to be a reliable source of information when it comes to campaign donations and money spent by lobbyists, so I’ve decided to check how Blue Cross Blue Shield spent their money. Now all the dots started to connect!
Blue Cross Blue Shield has donated equal amounts to both Democrats and Republicans.
Directly to candidates: $3,479,037
To parties: $4,680,132
They have 169 lobbyists, 112 have previously held a government job.
They’ve spent TWENTY FIVE MILLION dollars in 2016 lobbying!
More numbers can be found here https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000109
I don’t know about you, but the number of lobbyists and the amount spent are the most concerning to me. Blue Cross Blue Shield is buying its way into a health insurance monopoly with the help of the elected officials that we pay to represent us, that’s why repealing Obamacare is almost impossible! They have bought the votes to make sure we will continue to be forced to buy health insurance at exorbitant amounts and penalized if we don’t so the government can cover for those who qualify for subsidies. It’s a win/win for the last insurance company standing by the end of the debacle, and for those whose pockets have been filled with lobbying money.
Apparently, the oldest insurance company in the Country was no longer happy with convincing us that prepaying for medical costs was a good idea, it now wanted to be the only one able to meet the demand while having the guaranteed income through a mandate. Pretty smart!
Ultimately, the complete collapse of our health care will lead to the single payer system, so where does Blue Cross Blue Shield fit in this scenario? Well, someone will have to be the provider, right? Guess who? You got it.
THINK! It’s about the only thing left that is still free.