News from the government that 45,000 people die in the U.S. every year because they don’t have health insurance has outraged the health insurance industry. Stephen Hemsley, CEO of United Heath Group, speaking at a luncheon in Washington D. C. made it clear in his opening remarks that the industry would not take this kind of abuse. “We just want people to realize that 45,000 is a paltry number, said Hemsley. “We in The Industry are proud of the fact that we kill far more people than that every year by denying claims. That’s what we do and damn it, we do it very well. For the government bean counters to ignore this fact is a real slap in the face to the worker bees in our field who toil 24/7 to find increasingly obscure ways to tell sick people to buzz off. ” Hemsley went on to remind the audience that in the last five years as CEO of one of the biggest health insurance companies his compensation has topped $700 million dollars. “You don’t make this kind of money by paying out claims for heart transplants and diabetes treatments, he said. “Our actuaries have deduced a formula that reflects a “dollar to doughnuts” breakdown of how money from health premiums is spent. For instance, by denying a typical claim for treatment of breast cancer, we’re able to provide an entire place setting on one of our corporate jets. We’re talking real china plates, crystal stemware and monogrammed napkins. Some kid gets cystic fibrosis, we immediately bounce the family off our insurance rolls and put their premium payments to good use reseeding a golf course or putting new carpeting in the groundskeeper’s equipment shed. What the bleeding heart Democrats in Congress fail to realize is that with all these so called reforms they’re trying to push past our Republican obstructionist friends, there exists a real chance that our profits could be affected. Sure, we’re gonna get another 34 million unwilling policy holders paying premiums under penalty of jail time if they don’t, but how are we supposed to pay off our stock holders if we can’t reject sick bastards with a history of acne or ingrown toenails? With the new laws, every time some policy holder submits a claim for having a gangrenous leg amputated or a cancerous lung removed we’re supposed to write a check? Let’s get real here; if you take your car to a repair shop and pay for new tires, do you expect to drive off with new tires? Of course not! Or, more to the point, if you buy a fire insurance policy and your house burns down, ya think Allstate is gonna cut you a check for your loss? Not on this planet! Why should the health insurance industry be any different? It’s our God given duty to stand between patients and their doctors while we delay, obfuscate, and obstruct…. whatever it takes to deny that claim. We pay millions to senators and congressmen to see things our way and if these so called reforms pass you’re gonna see alot more people surviving catastrophic illness and we’ll get blamed for it, mark my words”.