“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?”

Posted on Sep 22, 2010 - 10:58 AM

“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? … Or, if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?”  Matthew 7.9 / 7.10

Yes!  There are those among us who are making this choice.  Several insurance companies, including Anthem Blue Cross and Aetna Inc., will no longer offer new coverage for child-only plans for children currently without insurance, as early as Thursday, September 23, 2010.  Why?  Instead of complying with our nation’s new health care laws requiring coverage for “children under age 19 regardless of their health histories,” which they say will present “huge and unexpected costs,” many insurance companies have decided to simply stop selling the policies.  According to experts, this would affect as many as 500,000 children nationwide.

Today’s headlines in The Huffington Post “THE CHILDREN ARE NOT ALRIGHT: Rather Than Comply With New Health Care Law, Insurers Drop Child-Only Policies” articulates the radical injustices inflicted on the majority of Americans by corporate greed.  According to an article by Duke Helfand of the Los Angeles Times, Anthem Blue Cross, “California’s largest for-profit insurer, said in a statement declaring its intention to “suspend the sale of child-only policies” on Thursday, six months after the healthcare overhaul was signed.” The article also noted “Aetna said that effective Oct. 1 it would no longer offer policies in the 32 states where it conducts business, including California, Florida, Illinois, Virginia and Pennsylvania.”  And, “Cigna Corp. will halt the policies in 10 states, including California, Arizona, Colorado, Tennessee and Texas.”

As the gap between rich and poor in this country continues to widen, we can ask ourselves, “Why?”  Why, in this supposedly great nation, do we allow the elites of power and wealth to dominate our politics and ignore the millions of people who suffer because of this gap?

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