The Health Care Plans: Worthless

Now that I’m over my disappointment in the sudden withdrawal of John Edwards from the nomination race, I’m back to officially “undecided.” I’ve reservations about both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, beginning on the policy side with health care.

Since both Clinton and Obama developed their plans while taking large campaign contributions from insurers, it’s not surprising that their plans are “insurer-friendly.” Both involve mandates requiring citizens to purchase health insurance from an insurance company. Both avoid highlighting problems with the way insurance works as the reason our system is in such outrageous disarray.

Continue reading »

The Health Insurance Racket as Organized Crime

“…insurers are just like shoplifters, they devise a new scheme a day.”
Michael A. Sedrish, M.D.
Director of Utilization Management
MediSys Health Network

In comments to other posts on the subject of the health care crisis in America, I have been asked to list some of the practices of health insurers that require rectification, and asked if doing away with health insurance altogether might be the best option for the country.

It is difficult to use examples from other people’s health insurance horror stories or even my own – though such horror stories are common enough – as objective justification for my belief that insurers need to be stripped of their excessive profits retroactively for at least a decade and a half (by means of punitive fines), and that a complete realignment of health care in America to single-payer, universal care is the best possible option for our society in the 21st century.

Continue reading »

John Edwards and “Dead Liver Girl”

Wow. Just… wow. Those Moonies at the New York Post have once again proven themselves to be as evil as their megalomaniacal leader (you know, that rich Korean nut case who swears he’s Jesus Christ), taking on John Edwards and the parents of Nataline Sarkisyan in a radical hit piece entitled Edwards’ Evil Insurance Scam – I kid you not. The subtitle is even more demeaning – “Twisting Tragedy of Dead Liver Girl.”

Dead Liver Girl? Oh, for pity’s sake! Nataline’s parents contacted Edwards’ campaign headquarters after their daughter died. She died because Cigna Insurance Company denied her doctors’ pleas for a liver transplant to save her life, saying that liver transplants are “experimental.” They reversed their decision when the California Nurses Union and Armenian activists demonstrated at their headquarters, but by then Nataline was already dead. The Sarkisyans appeared at a health care forum in New Hampshire with Edwards, and have come out in support of his candidacy as well as his plan to provide health care to all Americans.

Continue reading »

The Truth About Insurance…

…and Health Non-Care in Amerika

My readers know I’ve been following the latest developments in the “Health Care Crisis” in America, and the various Democratic candidates’ positions on that issue. I haven’t covered any Republican candidates’ positions because they basically don’t have any – just business as usual, which isn’t working to deal with the situation that most regular Americans are very acutely aware of.

I read a diary on DKos today that speaks to my underlying issue pretty well. Health Insurance Evils starts off with a tragic situation with the diarist’s 3-year old son who had a stroke in 1986 and died 4 years later. It’s definitely worth a read if you too have ever had to deal with an insurance claim that cost the insurer more than your annual payments for the policy added up to. That’s the kicker with the entire for-profit system of insurance, be it health, life or car insurance in this country. Once they start losing money on you, you’re outta here.

Continue reading »

CA Court Nails Insurance Scam

There is some slight good news on the health care front , which is encouraging after the bad news last week of Nataline Sarkisyan’s unnecessary Murder by Spreadsheet. A California appeals court has ruled that insurers cannot arbitrarily cancel health insurance policies when the covered person gets hurt or ill.

Yes, that does happen, and has been happening often enough over the past decade that the judicial system is now very much involved. The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana further ruled that insurers cannot cancel policies unless they can demonstrate that the policyholder willfully misrepresented his health on the application, and that the insurer had investigated that application before issuing the policy.

Continue reading »

Grief in the Wake of Victory

The Health Insurance Scam Breaks

Yahoo News issued a release on Thursday evening (December 20) from the California Nurses Association touting the victory of their joint demonstration with the National Nurses Organizing Committee and the Armenian community at the CIGNA insurance offices in Glendale, California, CIGNA Capitulates to Patient Revolt…

In a stunning turn around, insurance giant CIGNA has capitulated to community demands, and protests that the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee helped to generate, and agreed to a critically needed liver transplant for Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old girl in the intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Center, says CNA.

Meanwhile, activists from all over the country were spurred into inundating CIGNA’s phone lines throughout the day after learning of the situation and protest on websites like Daily Kos, My Space and others.

Continue reading »

Another SCHIP Update:

Republican Slime Machine Targets Injured 12-Year Old

Graeme Frost speaking to reporters after delivering the Democratic radio response to Bush’s SCHIP veto.

Just when you thought Mister 22% and his Brownshirts couldn’t go any lower in their efforts to prevent millions of children from accessing health care through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program [SCHIP], they managed to find yet another sub-basement cesspool from which to spew slime.

When Bush vetoed the SCHIP legislation passed by both the House and Senate, the Democratic response was delivered by courageous 12-year old Graeme Frost of Baltimore, Maryland. Graeme and his parents, who earn ~$45,000 a year but get no employer-provided health care and with 4 children cannot afford $1,200 a month for private coverage, went public with how the SCHIP program helped them after a 2004 auto accident left Graeme and his younger sister seriously injured and hospitalized for five months.

Continue reading »

Bush Vetoes SCHIP, Governors File Suit

Dems Struggling for Override Votes

For the fourth time during his reign of terror, George Bush used his veto pen to reject reauthorization and expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance program [SCHIP], in defiance of the wishes of a solid 72% majority of the American people and a Veto-Proof majority in the Senate on this completely bipartisan bill.

The 6.6 million children who were covered did have their coverage extended through November, the SCHIP funding from last year expired this past Sunday. The 4 million more children this bill would have covered are SOL, as usual.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are scrambling to come up with the two dozen extra votes they need to override the veto, but it’s not looking very hopeful. Senator Edward Kennedy weighed in over at Daily Kos with a challenge to the President, but then he’s a Senator holding a veto-proof majority on this legislation.

Continue reading »

House Votes to Ignore Bush SCHIP Threat

SCHIP Expansion Passed

As I reported last month when the Congress was on its summer vacation, President Bush promised in July to veto any legislation reauthorizing and expanding the State Children’s Insurance Program, a.k.a. SCHIP.

He’s stuck to that promise even as members of his own party – and a large swath of its right-wing ‘base’ – have turned on him over this issue. Many Congressional Republicans facing re-election next year have been getting an earful from the constituents back home about children’s health care and the millions of working poor and middle class children who are functionally uninsured. It’s a public health issue. It’s a moral issue. It’s a big political thorn in the side. But, as usual, Silver spoon George is deaf and dumb. There’s just something about providing health care to other people’s children he can’t stomach. And since he keeps reminding us that he’s the Decider-er, that’s that.

Continue reading »

“Suffer the little children…”

President Bush promised in July to veto legislation reauthorizing and expanding the decade old State Children’s Insurance Program [SCHIP] to include about 3.3 million more children in addition to the 6.6 million already enrolled, and expanding eligibility requirements. The bill had bipartisan support on the Hill, but Bush objected on philosophical grounds.

The philosophy is well known by now – Grover Norquist’s vision of shrinking government until it’s small enough to “drown in a bathtub.” Which might seem hypocritical coming from the man responsible for the largest increase in government since the New Deal, but we’re not supposed to notice that. This is the man who glibly sells our children’s economic future to China at the rate of $10 billion per month ($3,800 per second) just to keep his war of aggression going against the nation of Iraq. So it can’t really be about cost…

Continue reading »