Jerry Flanagan Fewer Quotations

Recent mergers have given the industry a strangle hold over the health insurance market. With fewer pressures for efficiency and no government oversight of rates, insurers have been given free rein to spend more of our health care dollars on overhead, profit, and administration. The last decade of HMO mergers has taught us that when fewer HMOs dominate the health care market, quality goes down, premiums go up, and patients get short changed. Already, 45 million Americans are uninsured because they cannot afford to pay the insurers' ransom.

The health care system is moving to a privately-owned 'Single Payer' system where patients will have fewer choices, less leverage and higher costs. The number of the uninsured will surely increase has the insurers' control increases. If we are going to have a Single Payer system, why not let the government pay a lot less for better care instead of turning the health care system over to private insurers that take 20 percent for overhead and profit.