John Rhodes: An empty table

While recently addressing The News & Observer editorial board about the purported need to increase health care rates, NC Blue Cross and Blue Shield CEO Brad Wilson stated that, in 2014, 5 percent of Affordable Healthcare Act customers consumed $830 million in health care costs. Of said amount, he stated NCBCBS collected $75 million in premiums between what the insured paid and the government subsidy.

Beyond describing this as an “unsustainable business model,” Wilson said, “We’ll ask for what we think we need (in premium increases) to remain solvent and reasonably profitable. Everything is on the table.”

Why does Wilson continually avoid “putting on the table” everything that makes health care so expensive to begin with? Whether it be within the health care industry’s “not-for-profit” sector or otherwise, beyond always protecting billions in dollars of profit disguised as personal income and advertising fees, our two-party system of representational government leaves those struggling to pay for the unsustainable profit of a seller’s market, which continually drives profit upward, unrepresented.

Instead of compromising the patient, why don’t Wilson and his deal-making associates of the political “left” and “right” actually put it all on the table?

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 4:49 PM with the headline "John Rhodes: An empty table."