Statement of Support: The Right of Health Insurers and Bankruptcy Lawyers to Profit from Illness

1 December 2009

Lawyers With Borders, a new non-governmental organization (NGO), calls on the United States Congress to block any change to that nation’s health care system that could threaten the right of U.S. health insurance companies and bankruptcy lawyers to earn profits.

“The Senate’s failure to quash debate is cause for alarm,” according to Lawyers With Borders Executive Director Brian J. Foley.

Foley explained: “The insurance companies have reached a consensus on how to benefit from people’s illnesses, to alleviate the flow of money that otherwise would have gone directly to physicians or dangerously remained in patients’ pockets. This consensus remains at risk.”

Populist calls for health care reform that would impose medical care free of charge on all Americans who want it, regardless of their ability to pay or employment status, should be ignored, Foley said. “This populism would set a dangerous precedent of making health care into a so-called human right that could then be wielded like a club against health insurance companies and their shareholders. The human right of health insurance companies to earn profits is a more established human right [than health care],” he said.

Also at risk is the human right of bankruptcy lawyers “to earn fees from shepherding debtors and creditors through the bankruptcy process, a process that at its best ensures that creditors may recoup at least some money from the debtors,” Foley said.

“In fact, our bankruptcy court system will become underutilized if people are no longer losing their savings to pay for medical care. What will the lawyers who have worked so hard to master this area of law do to earn their livelihood?” he asked.

Foley cautioned that if Congress appears willing to violate these human rights, Lawyers With Borders plans a “stern and vigorous letter writing campaign.” Similar to Amnesty International letter writing campaigns that allow people to write to political prisoners, the Lawyers With Borders campaign “will empower the public to voice support and appreciation and solidarity and even to donate money to health insurance companies and bankruptcy lawyers to prevent or at least mitigate any pecuniary loss should the U.S. government arbitrarily and illegally attempt to deprive them of their rightfully earned money," Foley said.

"If we (Lawyers With Borders) can educate the public about these rights, then I hope we won't have to go so far (as to actually carry out the letter-writing campaign)," Foley said.


LAWYERS WITH BORDERS is a non-governmental organization (NGO) modeled after Doctors Without Borders, except that its members are juris doctors, not medical doctors, and Lawyers With Borders does not help people without regard to borders, travel distance, or other jurisdictional issues, or for free. No health insurance company or other entity has paid for or requested this Statement of Support; rather, Lawyers With Borders issues such Statements in hope that the subject(s) of the Statement will retain Lawyers With Borders and pay for the campaign.