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While reading the Vent in the Sunday AJC there were two vents that caught my eye. Both were comments on health care, or health insurance.

“The health insurance industry vows to slow rate increases by 1.5 percentage points a year. My premium goes up 35% each year. That’s a change I can believe in?”

I believe the news article this venter referred to was actually stating health CARE leaders (medical providers) vowed to reduce increases by 1.5%.

Of course, even this was politicized and mischaracterized.

Still, the venter has a point. Perhaps the 1.5% savings falls under the something is better than nothing.

As for the 35% increase, I wonder if this is exaggerated. I can’t think of a single client who has experienced anything near that . . . ever.

The other vent either falls under the category of total embellishment or completely out of touch with reality.

“Medicare is now forecast to be broke by 2017, so now Congress has only eight years to figure out what people with any sense already know . . . cut out the middleman (the insurance industry) and the cost of health care would be halved almost overnight.”

When it comes to Medicare (and Medicaid) the insurance industry only functions as a claims adjudicator and payor. That function doesn’t consume anywhere close to half the dollars.

Of course we know that Medicare & Medicaid have been around for roughly 43 years while carriers such as Blue Cross & Kaiser Permanente have 60+ year histories.

Medicare & Medicaid, conceived and effectively run by Congress are in the tank and requiring more taxpayer dollars to keep them afloat.

Blue Cross and Kaiser are both privately run, are financially solvent, and have never taken a penny of taxpayer money.

Venter’s are supposed to be humorous. The politicalization of health care is no laughing matter.