Why Do the Health Insurance Companies Hate Us? Don’t Ask Me

 A quick analysis of the situation might suggest the New Hampshire Advantage Plan is not much of an advantage to the health insurance companies’ bottom line.  If even a moderate profit could be made offering this plan, insurance companies would probably be lined up and down Interstate 93 trying to fill the market vacuum left by these corporate bunglers.  By the way, if you notice such a line forming, please give me a “heads up.”  I’m looking for a new supplement plan.

 But the unanswered question is, “Why is this happening?"  Recent local reportage seems to point the finger at the indefensible greed, we sometimes call “profit,” as the underlying cause of this reckless move by the insurance companies.  I think there may be something to this theory, but who can tell us “why?”  In an effort to find an answer to this question, let’s consider a brief history of “profit” since the beginning of time.  As a Historian-In-Training, I am authorized to construct such a history, so let’s see if we can figure this out.

 Many years ago, homosapiens began to pop up in various caves around the planet.  They first gathered in small groups we can call “extended families.”  Some people might call them “communities” but I think that might be jumping the gun just a bit.

 These families had to fend for themselves in the struggle for survival. Not only did they have to fulfill their daily needs, but they also had to produce an excess that could be invested in the future. This enabled the groups to improve such things as weapons, shelter, food collection etc. so they could live more comfortably and be prepared when things got tough. Everybody had to pitch in to achieve this excess, men and women, young and old, the infirm, the mentally challenged, it was a big job.  Let’s call that excess of things “profit,” for want of a better word.

 This “profit” concept was enforced by none other than Mother Nature and she did not suffer fools gladly.  Her rule was simple.  No excess, no survival.  I believe there were actually community organizers in some of the caves, who considered this rule unfair, and tried to reason with Mother Nature.  We have to guess at this, however, because those groups, unfortunately, didn’t survive.  When groups cooperated with Mother Nature and produced a respectable profit, she usually chilled a little and allowed the groups to exempt a few members from the workforce, extend vacations, things like that.

 Let’s jump ahead a few thousand years.  Remember, we said this would be a “brief” history.  When Captain John Smith cruised into Jamestown and began dating Pocahontas, he found a rather desperate situation.  Some of the community organizers had taken control, and told everyone they didn’t have to work if they didn’t want to.  As you might suspect, this was a problem.  Now Captain Smith knew how to turn a phrase, as Pocahontas would confirm, and after consulting with Mother Nature, he put it bluntly to the inhabitants:  “No work, no food.”  Although a great deal of damage had already been done, he managed to salvage the situation.

 Now we take another great leap to Russia in the early 20th century.  Over the years, community organizers had been improving their techniques, and the groups of homosapiens were getting bigger and bigger.  Many of the organizers, who liked to call themselves intellectuals, thought the large groups would give them a better bargaining position with Mother Nature.  Not too shabby with a turn of phrase themselves, they declared, “To each according to their need, from each according to their ability.” The nonintellectuals in Russia paraphrased this by declaring, “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”  As Yakov Smirnoff would say many years later, “What a country!”  Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not amused.  In what can only be called a blink of a historical eye, the intellectuals and their supporters were swept away, in other words, they didn’t survive.

 Next we’ll examine the “land of the free and home of the brave.”  Here people did not argue with Mother Nature.  They worked hard, made a good profit and sure enough, Mother Nature chilled out, things got pretty cushy:  plenty of food, less work, more exemptions from the workforce, more holidays, longer vacations etc.  Mother Nature was happy, and we all know when Mom’s happy, everybody’s happy.  The community organizers, having invented Public Relations, quickly claimed credit for the good times.  They believed their organizing had actually created prosperity.

 An unfortunate side effect of the prosperity was that Community Organizers were now exempted from work, and used their excess time to sharpen their arguments.  They thought they had been so successful, they could convince Mother Nature to just forget about this ridiculous “profit” thing.  “Profit” was sooo last millennium.  She was not amused.  Undaunted, the organizers drove to the mall in cars manufactured by profit-making corporations, bought computers produced by profitable companies, used software developed by companies making obscene profits and communicated their ideas on the internet, designed by…  Now let’s give credit where credit is due, the Internet was developed by Al Gore and the community organizers, so the excess time on their hands was not a total waste.  The more they communicated, however, the more they believed they could convince Mother Nature to be reasonable.  This was a mistake.  Moms don’t become Moms by being reasonable.

 Now we’re back to New Hampshire in 2011 and the question remains, “Why are these health insurance companies doing this to us?”  I think by now you may have the answer:  the companies are simply scared to death of Mother Nature.  Unlike many of the community organizers, the insurance company execs know and have learned from history.  They just want to survive.  Can you blame them?