More bad news for Bushco boosters

With health care shaping up as a bigger issue all the time, as Kerry runs ads highlighting the problem and the Congressional D's hyping a new petition for a Patient's Bill of Rights, Bush has stuck with his pals in the insurance industry, figuring, apparently, that their checks will buy more votes than he loses by ignoring those in need.

Pandering to the insurers legislative desirese, though, may not be enough if his economic policies keep cutting into their customer base in the way this weekend post from Nathan Newman indicates.

It's fair to say that a lot of jobs that are being created may not be the jobs that come with benefits," Ron Williams, president of Aetna Inc. (NYSE:AET - news), one of the biggest U.S. health insurers with 13 million members, told investors in early June.

That echoes recent comments by others in the industry including William McGuire, chief executive of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH - news), the biggest U.S. health plan with 18 million members...
Analysts who follow the big publicly-traded health plans in general have even more grim enrollment forecasts than the companies themselves.

The stark reality is that employer-paid health care is now a privilege, not something a majority of employees can aspire to: In 2003, 45 percent of employees had medical coverage through employers, down from 63 percent a decade earlier, according to government figures.

Let's face it, you can't get rich gouging customers you don't have. Folks who do math for a living are bound to figure that out.