In 2000, Physicians for a National Health Program doctors published, in JAMA and The Lancet, articles about top Health Insurers' investments in Cigarette Manufacturers.

See: http://www.pnhp.org/news/2000/march/insurers_are_major_i.php

An excerpt:

" Insurers' tobacco holdings include:

Cigna, the giant HMO firm, owns over $38 million in Philip Morris stocks and $4 million in Loews stocks.

MetLife's stockholdings total $55 million in Philip Morris and almost $7 million in Loews.

Prudential Insurance owns $435 million of Philip Morris, nearly $320 million of Loews stock, and $137 million of RJ Reynolds "

Why Michael Moore didn't mention this grossly unacceptable link in "Sicko" is a question. Big Insurance is Part of Big Cig. How much do insurers invest today? And aren't THEY the ones who ought be paying penalties and compensation and "settlements" INSTEAD OF the victims via price hikes?

Big Insurance is THE largest investment bloc on Wall Street. We need to ask where ELSE does this industry invest what was ostensibly our health care money? It is possible to find out at the SEC's EDGAR database, but that is a difficult site to navigate. But, this needs to be done so that the people of California know where they are forced to send their money.

Perhaps legislation can be demanded to require Insurers to reveal all industrial insurance and investment links. This is a Right -To-Know issue.

If we are to be Forced to select a private insurer, many would certainly prefer an insurer that ONLY invested in benign industries...ones that don't pollute or use sweatshop labor, that don't bust unions, that do not clearcut or destroy mountain tops for coal, that do not make Instruments of War, etc etc....AND that do not compete with one's own business or personal investments.

Since such an insurer probably does not exist...well...the only option is Single Payer.

The conflicts of interest caused by this insurer/investment linkage are entirely at odds with the Public Interest.

If an insurer is heavilly invested in, say, chlorine and pesticides, that insurer has motive and even Corporate Duty to shareholders to do all possible to ignore or under-play the health harms caused by those investment properties.

The motive/duty is there to mis-diagnose illnesses, to therefore fail to properly treat the illnesses, to blame other things for a disease, and to fail to advise patients about benign alternatives.

We have this happening, perhaps the worst way, in the "smoking" situation where the insurers named above, and likely all the others, join in blamng A) public domain tobacco plants, B) the unwitting people who think and are told it's just tobacco, and C) bar owners and the like.

The idea of actually STUDYING a typical cigarette regarding its high levels of pesticide residues, the chlorine pesticides and bleached paper, the resultant dioxin in the smoke, the radiation from certain fertilizers, the many other toxic/cancer-causing non-tobacco adulterants etc is not allowed. It's the Taboo Topic of our times. To do THAT would seriously harm an insurer's investments in a cigarette manufacturer AND in the pesticide etc firms that supply the chemicals and other substances.

If an insurer also happens to be invested in Pharmaceuticals, the motive and duty is huge for an insurer to promote their own drugs over others that may be cheaper, safer, and more effective.

The motive is also huge for such an insurer to disregard, or not even look for, harms from drugs it may be invested in. Such an insurer, and affiliates, would be quite unlikely to promote alternative medicine. Such an insurer would be Most Unlikely to mention or look for harms to patients caused by tobacco pesticides manufactured by its own, or any, pharmaceutical property. What hospitals under the wing of such insurers test patients for body burdens of those industrial chemicals or even dioxin?

See: http://fauxbacco.blogspot.com for list of tobacco pesticides and known manufacturers...some in California. Big Pharm is a major part , perhaps the most harmful part, of the cigarette industry...though it pretends otherwise.



If an insurer exists that is not invested in, or an insurer of, a health-damaging industry, we have not been told of that.

That we are compelled to patronize and provide pools of investment funds for industries that may be the very ones who harmed our health (and ought be PAYING for the care) is a cruel hoax...an abominable injustice. Not one person in the state or anywhere would vote for such a situation...IF they knew about it.

Further...as per Free Speech violations, according to the First Amendment, no one may be compelled to speak (with words OR money), except in extraordinary situations like Grand Juries or re/ child abuse, etc. Supporters of Compulsory Insurance Patronage say that this is just like with Auto Insurance. It is NOT. That insurance is only for drivers and, as they said in promoting that similar scam, "no one is compelled to drive".

However, with health care, they say, in effect, that no one is Compelled to live in the state, or that No One is Compelled to LIVE, period.