Greg Ganske: “I think we should make a distinction between the insurance industry and HMOs and the managed care industry. There are a…”

“I think we should make a distinction between the insurance industry and HMOs and the managed care industry. There are a lot of health insurance companies that provide health insurance policies to individuals. They do not have the liability exemption that a managed care plan, an HMO, has when it is offered through an employer. Consequently, we see significantly fewer of these horror stories from that portion of the insurance industry. We see fewer reports of problems in the nonprofit managed care industry because they are ethically trying to do their job. When they look at a Patient Bill of Rights, as has been proposed by our legislation, they are already doing most of the things that we are proposing. What we are really talking about is a subset of the managed care industry that adamantly opposes quality standards. Why? Because they are cutting corners. That way they can increase their profit margin. Their stock will go up. Their CEOs will make millions more. They can capture more of the market share, because they are keeping their premiums lower than those plans that are actually trying to do a legitimate job.”