Louisiana Voice

The following is a letter to LouisianaVoice by Ms. Patricia Labarde of Luling:

Louisiana Voice:

Subj: Potential consequences Privatizing OGB’s PPO.

1. Deteriorating health and bankruptcy for a vast amount of people.

2. 2010, $15 Billion Profits for Five largest insurance companies.

3. 2011, 7.3%, Insurance increase for people insured through their job.

4. 60% of bankruptcy due to medical expense.

Louisiana Voice,

I am requesting consideration for this letter to be used on your Louisiana Voice internet site.

Potential consequences from Mr. Jindal privatizing OGB’s PPO include, but not limited to: bankruptcy and deteriorating health due to less medical care caused by higher cost of insurance, less benefits or total loss of insurance for the vast amount of people insured with the PPO plan and OGB’s 149 terminated employees.

Last year, OGB was forced to bid on the PPO plan and, by far, was the lowest bidder, proving OGB provides the best insurance coverage at the lowest cost.

The enclosed researched information on insurance companies’ profits, (an unimaginably amount), what they spend their money on and cost increase, prove OGB is the best choice to manage the PPO plan. Insurance companies are in the business to make money! Due to time constraints, only five examples of research are listed in the sub-bullets as follows:

· Insurance companies spend on medical care, (their ‘medical loss ratio‘) is about 80 percent of total revenue and profits consume 20 cents out of every dollar. By contrast, the federally run Medicare…spends 97 cents of every dollar on patient care. The insurance companies are wasting 17 cents out of every dollar. There are 47 million (U.S.) people uninsured. [1]

· Five largest insurers: WellPoint, Cigna, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and Humana; a 250% return over the past decade earned over $15 billion in 2010. That’s 22% growth over their combined $12.2 billion earnings in 2009. [2]

· Health care costs for a family of four have doubled in less than a decade from $9,235 in 2002 to over $19,000 in 2011. American families who are insured through their jobs average health care costs of $19,393 this year, up 7.3%, or $1,319 from last year. [3]

· 82.5% of Americans in families that spend more than 10% of income on health care have health insurance. [4]

· More than 60% of people who go bankrupt are actually capsized by medical expense. [5]

Thank you for your time. I would like a response at your earliest convenience.

Respectively submitted,

Ms Patricia Lagarde

RESOURCES:

[1] By: Eric Breit-Nicholson, Single Payer Health Care, Mary O’Brien and Martha Livingston, Consumer Reports, [5] by: Woolhandler Campbell, and Himmelstein.

http://www.richardboettner.com/a/health/SinglePayerHealthCare.pdf.

[2] By: MellyAlazraki, Posted 10:25AM 02/04/11, Health Insurers Post Healthy Profits.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/02/04/health-insurers-post-healthy-quarterly-profits-cautious-2011-outlook/.

[3] By: Parja Kavilanz, May 11, 2011: 3:45 PM ET, Milliman Inc, CNN Money, money.cnn.com/2011/05/11/news/economy/healthcare_costs_family/index.htm

[4] By: Dr.David Himmelstein, Medical Bankruptcy on the Rise, Stand Up for Health Care, Posted June 12, 2009 at 2:35pm.

http://www.standupforhealthcare.org/blog/medical-bankruptcy-on-the-rise.

[5] By: Theresa Tamkins, Health Insurance, CNN Health, June 5, 2009.

http://www.articles.cnn.com/…/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance?_…HEALTH.