Anthem Blue Cross of California recently announced that it intends to raise its customers’ insurance rates by a margin of 25 to 39 percent. The company clearly didn’t have to gain any approval for this move – from its customers or from the government. Anthem Blue Cross, a WellPoint subsidiary, is the largest private, profit-motivated insurance company operating in California right now. Its planned rate increase will affect 800,000 Californians.
This scandalous rate increase, if positioned correctly in the media, could be the perfect spin vehicle to keep the prospect of some health care reform alive – it’s not nice, but that’s how it is. California is a state with many (sometimes very active) voices and many electoral votes, and the opinions of Californians do carry some weight in government. This Anthem Blue Cross debacle can serve as proof that the entire health care system needs an overhaul. It’s proof of the fact that health care companies will do anything to make money – and they should, according to a completely capitalist economic theory – but that shouldn’t stand for Americans who are willing to recognize health care as a right rather than a privilege, subject to monopolies and bureaucracy.
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