The big news in U.S. health care came early Monday morning (1 am to be exact) as a 60-Senator majority agreed upon their plan for health care reform. The Senate bill would make health insurance mandatory for almost all citizens of the union, covering nearly 30 million currently uninsured Americans. But, if there is any indication as to whether this most recent bill favors the American individual or the private, for-profit insurance companies all one needs to do is to look towards the ticker. Shares of major U.S. health insurance companies rose Monday, including Aetna, Cigna, Humana, United Health and Wellpoint – all hitting 52-week highs. According to Businessweek, “Investors have been worried for months that a public option would provide unfair competition to private insurers in part because it would receive government financial backing and could set reimbursement at artificially low levels.” But, worry no more since the lobbying efforts of these companies continue to pay off as lawmakers continue to pass bills that put our money into the pockets of insurers rather than spending the majority of it on caring for our health. [via Businessweek]
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Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.