Dear Anthem Blue Cross

via The Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Sacramento — Executives from California health insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross, under fire for scheduled rate hikes of up to 39%, insisted Tuesday that their premiums were fair and legal, and they told lawmakers they expected that the increases would go forward. Appearing before the state Assembly's health committee, the officials said that they believed rate increases for individual health insurance policies, delayed until May 1 while being reviewed by the Department of Insurance, would survive scrutiny by regulators.

President Obama on Monday proposed an expansion of federal authority to regulate health insurance rate increases such as Anthem's as part of his national healthcare reform package. In Sacramento, Anthem's president, Leslie Margolin, told the committee that much of the public frustration over the rate hikes was misdirected and should be aimed at the nation's healthcare system.

"This debate and this inquiry cannot and should not be just about the insurance industry or the delivery system or regulators or legislators or customers or brokers," Margolin said.

Now, it's kind of hard to address a letter to an entire company, but I've done worse so here goes:

Take a look at the video... Take a good long look at it. Look at how happy that kid is that he didn't have a serious condition that you guys wouldn't pay for. I've kept my mouth shut about insurance and health care and the insurance companies for a while, simply because I'm not in a position to sit here and talk shit about a entity that I don't identify with. Now, however, I can talk all I want. Anthem, you guys are trifling. How dare you hike up your prices 39% for health care while we're still in a recession? I mean, seriously. As if the overwhelming financial collapse and the impending doom from global warming or natural disaster weren't enough, you guys decided it was cool to nickel and dime Californians some more. I don't get it. How can you guys be so hypocritical, as to claim the system is failing, yet continue to feed into it by charging insane rates for health care?

One thing I've always wondered about most service companies is how they can purport this ideal of caring employees and respect for the customer when you guys lie to everyone, including yourselves? Since when has raising prices been a method of helping people? Since when has an 'affordable plan' come at a 39% markup? The fact that you guys are even trying to fight it shows how screwed up the priorities of big health care are. Instead of reworking your system in an effort to work with our government for a change, you guys are making it worse. They say most good businessmen are bad people. But if your business is to help people, where do you draw the line between trying to make a profit and simply screwing people over?? I guess when you have enough 'Jacks' running around breaking bones, all you can see is money...