Health Insurers Offer to Drop Overcharging for Illness

Nurses Blast “Cruel Ruse” by Insurance Giants to Cover Patients As Deal for Forcing Americans to Buy Insurance

The nation's largest organization of registered nurses today condemned the conditional offer by the insurance industry to stop denying coverage to sick people in exchange for a massive government bailout….

… On Tuesday, the insurance trade lobby America's Health Insurance Plans and Blue Cross and Blue Shield offered to stop denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions – but only if the healthcare reform plan under consideration in Congress contains a requirement forcing all Americans to buy private insurance – and if Congress rejects a proposal to include a public plan alternative for people not wanting private insurance.
"That's not a sign of flexibility at all, it's blackmail," said Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the 85,000-member California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
"They are only willing to scale back on their immoral denial of coverage for people who are sick, even those who have had minor illnesses, if they are given billions of dollars in payments from private individuals and government subsidies," said Jenkins.
The insurer's proposal "amply demonstrates what is so fundamentally wrong with our insurance-based system. Decisions on whether patients can receive healthcare coverage are not based on patient need, but on how much profit the private insurers can make."
Nurses, said Jenkins, were also disturbed at the response of lawmakers and others who praised the proposal.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Nurses-Blast-Cruel-Ruse-by-Insurance-Giants-to-Cover-Patients-as-Deal-for-Forcing-Americans-to-Buy-Insurance-40649-1/