Another Wealth Care Story

A frequent complaint of the No Change protesters is that they don't want government "bureaucrats" to make the decisions about their health care. Sounds like bureaucrats--corporate bureaucrats--are already making health care decisions for people--with deadly results. One woman in a Florida protest held a sign that asked, "Where will Canadians go" if we in the U.S. nationalize our health care system.

Actually, Canadians don't need to go anywhere. They have it all--regardless of income, regardless of employment status, regardless of age. Free health care. Everyone's covered. Had I been on the scene, I would have asked the Florida protester if she's talked with Canadians about their health care system. I have, and I've talked with Brits and with Germans too, more than I can count. Not one has ever said they'd trade their system for ours. I'd also ask the woman with the sign what her particular financial and/or employment situation is, and what type of health insurance coverage she has since she seems well satisfied with it. None of those questions was asked in the news broadcast. The woman said health care decisions should be the realm of doctor and patient.

Read the CNN report about a teenager who did not get to make her own health care decision.
( BTW--CNN you're not very user friendly, are you? It's not like I don't give FULL attribution when I swipe another writer's story)

By Jim Acosta and Bonney Kapp
CNN's American Morning
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Wendell Potter says he is finished defending the insurance industry, which he says is "beholden to Wall Street."

At a hearing last week before the Senate Commerce Committee, the former vice president of corporate communications at the insurance giant Cigna testified, "I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry."

The committee's chairman, Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, told Potter, "You are better than Russell Crowe on 'The Insider,' " referring to the award-winning 1999 film about cigarette company executive Jeffrey Wigand, who blew the whistle on the tobacco industry's practices.

In his testimony and during an interview with CNN, Potter described how underwriters at his former company would drive small businesses with expensive insurance claims to dump their Cigna policies. Industry executives refer to the practice as "purging," Potter said.

"When that business comes up for renewal, the underwriters jack the rates up so much, the employer has no choice but to drop insurance," Potter said.

CNN obtained a transcript of a 2008 Cigna conference call with investors in which company executives use the term "purge."

But in an e-mail to CNN, Cigna spokesman Chris Curran denied the company engages in purging.

"We do not practice that. We will offer rates that are reflective of the competitive group health insurance market. We always encourage our clients to compare our proposed rates to those available from other carriers," Curran wrote.

Cigna had revenue of $19.1 billion in 2008, according to the company Web site.

Potter decided to leave Cigna after attending a charity medical event.
"It was almost like an electrical jolt," Potter said.

At the event, Potter took pictures of doctors offering free health care to the uninsured.

"The volunteer doctors were seeing patients in barns, people in animal stalls," Potter said. "It changed it for me."

He says he finally decided to quit in 2007 after Cigna's controversial handling of an insurance claim made by the family of a California teenager, Nataline Sarkysian.

The Sarkysian family made repeated appeals at news conferences for Cigna to approve a liver transplant for the 17-year-old, who had leukemia. Cigna initially declined to cover the operation, then reversed its decision.

Sarkysian died hours after the company's reversal.

As Cigna's spokesman during the controversy, Potter had no role in the decision to deny coverage. But he was inundated with angry phone calls.

"After she died, my voice mail and my e-mail inbox were just filled with messages from people who were just outraged, " Potter said.

Now a senior fellow on health care for the nonpartisan watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy, Potter writes a blog on health care reform. In particular, he is keeping an eye on efforts to defeat legislation that would give Americans the option of joining a government health care plan, something he now supports.

He says he witnessed how the insurance industry torpedoed health care reform efforts during the Clinton administration.

"They conduct what I call duplicitous PR campaigns. They'll say what people want to hear," Potter says. "It's how they operate. You cannot trust these guys."


Wendell Potter's Senate testimony link is here: www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/potter

Our Health Care System in Action

From today's NY Daily News, another health care horror story. With a single payer public plan, this woman would not be dependent on an employer for the health care she needs. With a single payer public health plan, she would not be desperate to find another job to get the health care she needs. With a single payer public health plan, Ms Rollins would not be preparing to FILE BANKRUPTCY because of her health care bills. I'll say it again. This wealth care system we have is BARBARIC. Even if Ms Rollins is reinstated to her job, there's nothing to stop her former employer from changing to another, more expensive health plan that offers less coverage. The only way to clean up this mess is a SINGLE PAYER PUBLIC HEALTH PLAN that covers everyone. Here's Lydia Rollins horror story: (Unfortunately, it's not the only one)



BY Adam Lisberg
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Wednesday, July 1st 2009, 4:00 AM

Handschuh/News
Lydia Rollins is suing city, saying she asked ACS for help and got fired.

Related News
Articles
Web site links Brooklyn man with kidney
When Lydia Rollins found out she needed a new kidney, she said she asked her bosses at the city Administration for Children's Services for time to go to dialysis - even if it meant a pay cut.

Instead, she claims, they fired her. Now she's out of a job - and health insurance.

Even though her brother has offered to give her a kidney, she can't afford the surgery or expensive drugs she would need afterward.

"I believe they probably fired me because of my medical condition," said Rollins, 25, who is suing the city for a human rights violation. "A transplant offers me a better quality of life."

The city Law Department declined to comment on Rollins' case, or say why she was fired. Her termination letter doesn't give a reason, and the city's response to her lawsuit denies all her claims without explanation.

She said she has gone on job interviews, but her three-hour dialysis sessions three times a week have scared off potential employers.

"It's a Catch-22," said her lawyer, Robert Ottinger. "She got a job, and they fired her because she got sick.

"But she can't get better until she gets a job. Somebody's got to help."

Rollins started work as a child protective specialist in July 2007, a job that required her to visit families at their homes and testify in court.

She said she went to the hospital in November because of leg cramps - and soon was told her kidneys were failing and she needed a transplant.

"The best option for end-stage renal failure is a kidney transplant," said Madhu Bhaskaran, head of the transplant program at North Shore University Hospital-Long Island Jewish Medical Center.

"Their chance of reaching their average life span doubles if they get a transplant."

By the spring of 2008, Rollins said, she was too weak to do her regular duties.

She wrote her supervisors a letter citing the Americans with Disabilities Act, asking that they accommodate her illness by not requiring her to leave the office.

She attached a note from her doctor saying less-demanding work would be better for her health.

"Things started going bad when I gave them the doctor's note," Rollins said.

"I gave them that letter to open up a dialogue - almost to say, 'help me.' I wanted to continue doing my job. I just wanted a little help."

She said she was willing to transfer to a job that paid less, as long as she could keep her medical benefits.

"My main focus was just to keep my health insurance. That was vital. The paycheck was nice, but I really need the health insurance."

The following month, she said, she was hospitalized for two weeks when her entry point for dialysis treatment became infected.

When she came back to the office, she said, a secretary handed her a note saying she had been fired.

"I felt horrible," she said. "I was very upset. I felt like my world was crashing down around me."

Since being fired almost a year ago, Rollins said, she has racked up huge debts - including hospital bills - and is preparing to file for bankruptcy.

Although she has tried to get another job, her dialysis schedule makes it difficult.

For now, she wears a catheter, connected to her bloodstream, under her shirt - and pins her hopes on her lawsuit.

"If they give me a nice settlement," Rollins said, "I'd be able to pay for it."

alisberg@nydailynews.com

In Plain English: A Doctor Speaks

To Your Health

cartoon courtesy of St Petersburg Times

Sunday 6/21/2009.

Got health insurance? Don't hold yer breath waiting for "reform" to kick in because ya might not have the coverage to pay for a doc to resuscitate you.

The latest scam the health-- whocares? hucksters are running on us is a "cooperative exchange" where we, the rabble, can purchase wealth care insurance, thus adding to the wealth care industry's profits.

OK, one more time.

People don't have wealth insurance because... t h e y c a n 't af f o r d i t.

The premiums are too high, co-pays are too high, deductibles are too high, coverage is too dodgy/skimpy, and too many people are unemployed, and the COBRA subsidy either missed them or they can't afford it even with the subsidy, and besides, COBRA is temporary-- like too many jobs these days.

You didn't think the wealth insurance industry and Big Pharma drug pushers were gonna give up their profitable stranglehold on the nation's health. Did ya? Ha, ha! That would be like Exxon selling hybrid plug-in cars.

HR 676 is the right plan. Kick the wealth care companies out of our doctor's offices, out of our hospitals, and out of our pockets. Evict the HMOs (Health Murdering Organizations) from medicare and medicaid.

Read all about it: www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676

Eminently Quotable

ECONOMICS
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln Source: December 3, 1861 - Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress.

"To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle." Henry David Thoreau

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil." Albert Einstein

"The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn ofcivilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundantanimal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

EVIL
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The world is too dangerous to live in—not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen." Albert Einstein

EARTH
"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen." Henry David Thoreau (I love this one!)

FREEDOM
"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."Abraham LincolnSource: April 6, 1859 - Letter to Henry Pierce

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."Albert Einstein

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." Henry David Thoreau

TRUTH
A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. John F. Kennedy

“Welcome to New York, now go the fuck home.” Johnny Cash.

Happy Birthday to the Lady

Today is Aung San Suu Kyi's 64th birthday, and like thirteen previous birthdays, she spends this one under arrest. Her "crime" was trying to incite democracy.The only way the brutal military junta could silence her was to place her under house arrest.In 1991 Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace prize. Her sons Kim and Alexander accepted the prize in Oslo on her behalf while she remained in detention.

It's worth noting that the regime offered to release Suu Kyi if she would leave the country and cease her political activity. At her father's funeral, she had vowed to fight on for her people for the rest of her life, and has paid a steep price for that.

{It's also worth noting that in our own times and in our own country, there are men and women who resolve to fight for their people and who refuse to be silenced, even when threatened with the loss of their housing, their livelihoods, their freedom, and are reviled and ridiculed in the media. I can think of one such woman who would not sell out, and could not be bought, and whose popular straight talking media forum was taken from her. Nevertheless, she is not silent, and not forgotten.)

This backwards and repressive regime in Burma has killed and imprisoned Buddhist monks, and peaceful protesters. They have held their stolen power in Burma since 1990when Suu Kyi's NLD party (National League for Democracy) won 82% of parliamentary votes. The illegitimate regime refused to recognize the election results.

If I could make a birthday wish for Suu Kyi, I would wish for her immediate and unconditional release, for the establishment of a democratic government in Burma and in all countries, and for a world where all Suu Kyis (and Connies) would be not only properly recognized and honored, but allowed to live in freedom and dignity.

The Irrawaddy News www.irrawaddy.org is a good source for info about Burma.

Don't Be a Stooge

Health care reform talks are under way in the great banquet halls of Washington, and all the usual suspects are feasting at the public trough. Senator Max "let'em eat cake" Baucus presides at the head of the table, joined by a gaggle of wealth insurance industry reps, who haven't missed any meals lately.

It's just recently, after some citizens got arrested for protesting the absence of any representative for a single payer health plan for their fellow Americans, that the Senator "allowed" a representative for single payer to join the talks.

Former HCA CEO Rick Scott is spreading his message of health care "choice" over the airwaves via pricey T.V. ads that only a wealth insurance industry profiteer could afford.

The truth is, the only choice Scott and his ilk care about is their choice to make obscene profits at the expense of your health.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The insurance industry cult of death fooled enough people in the Clinton administration to kill Hillary's health care initiative back in 1993.

Today, after 16 years of higher premiums, higher co-pays, higher deductibles, fewer choices of doctors and services--not to mention the Medicare and Medicaid fraud rip offs by private HMOs aka Health Murdering Organizations--is there anybody left in the world who really believes the wealth care industry's B.S.?

If you believe that the wealth insurance industry is fighting so hard against a single payer public health plan because the insurance industry is concerned aboout your choices, well, then you're the stooge.



As for Senator Balk at single payer choice and Rick "kill 'em & bill 'em" Scott, here's pie in ya face!

Got dental?
Here's where private dental insurance is headed, if we keep on the current path.

Anti Anxiety Remedy

A recent talk by Ralph Nader on Alternative Radio discussed the U.S. wealth care sytem. Yes, you can get a transcript at http://www.alternativeradio.org/. Ralph Nader, a longtime consumer advocate, might be too "radical" to be considered for political office, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know his subject matter. Remember, Ralph Nader has never been indicted for fraud-- unlike some of our political and health insurance luminaries. I listened to his talk today and learned some things I didn't know...


For example, I knew Taiwan, Japan, Canada, the UK and all other civilized European countries had universal health care for all their people, but what I didn't know was that Israel, a tiny country that incidentally receives $3 billion in aid from the U.S.A., also provides universal health care to its people. Well, for that matter, so does Cuba.


What I did already know before Mr. Nader mentioned it was the level of anxiety produced by medical bills. I saw it as a union steward, when the number one complaint by fellow union members was large and unexpected medical bills that they didn't understand, and couldn't pay, and bizarre coverage exclusions--such as diabetic test strips and insulin syringes. Fortunately, the union employed a health and welfare benefits person who knew the insurance game inside and out, and when I gave her number to the distressed union members, she made their bills disappear.


Not everyone is so lucky.

It's estimated that medical bills cause 60% of all U.S. bankrupties.


Census data puts the number of Americans with no health insurance at about 45 million. What? I haven't seen a census taker at my door since the 1990's. How often do they update their figures? And BTW-- most people are out of their homes, at work all day, and sometimes on weekends. How do they get included in the census data? Do the thousands of homeless people in the USA get included in the census data? What about workers who get money sucked out of every pay check for wealth insurance but never use it because:


1. No doctors/dentists will accept their crappy inadequate insurance.

2. They can't afford the co-pays.

3. They can't find a doctor in their "network," and using an out of network doctor is too expensive.


Do they get labeled insured, or uninsured?


If you have employer provided health insurance, and you can't afford to use it, or you do use it and later you get bills you can't pay, so your medical bills get reported to the credit bureaus, your credit rating goes down... your anxiety level goes up, what then?


Big Pharma to the rescue, with a bag full o' drugs--not to solve your problems, but to make you too numb to care.


A single payer public health care program will cut costs, because opportunities to game the system by insurance industry fraudsters will be reduced by having one bill payer. One payer--directly to doctors and hospitals. Kick the HMO's out of medicare and medicaid. Pay the doctors directly--no more HMOs skimming profits, and denying basic care to sick people.


Profit doesn't belong in health care because it does harm.

Wolf Killer Knocks Barack

The prez started his job January 20th, about four and a half months ago, and already they're screeching: he failed, he's a socialist, a public health plan will create "unfair competition" for the wealth care industry. Again, I say: I thought we liked competition.

Consider the sources of the above complaints. (NY Daily News)

1. Newt Gingrich (who?) a msm talking head who recently spouted off calling Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor a "racist," then took it back. Go away, Gnat/Newt.

2. Sarah "shoot from the sky" Palin. The Alaska governor who would be V.P. supports the aerial shooting of wolves. Not exactly a fair fight. Watch the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQobIUE1zTU

3. Actor Jon Voight, probably best known for being Angelina's father, spoke at a recent GOP event:

Voight said Republicans need to free the nation from "this Obama oppression."

These people don't know what oppression is. To them, oppression is being allowed to only hide some of their millions in offshore bank accounts. To them, oppression is trading "down" to a Lexus.

OK, reality check time. In December 2007, during the previous Republican regime, the nation plunged into the great recession--even earlier for most low wage slaves. Since the beginning of the endless War of 2003, almost 5,ooo US troops have been killed. Thousands of others made it home alive, but with serious and permanent injuries. And the civilians killed? We don't want to know.

Under the previous regime, Wall Street crumbled, the credit industry imploded, the house flipping market collapsed like the house of cards that it was.

You, Republicans, gave your guy eight years.

In those years wages fell or were stagnant. Health care-- I mean wealth care costs skyrocketed, and 20,000 people die each year because they can't afford health care. In those eight years unfettered greed not only brought the U.S. economy to the brink of collapse, it trashed economies around the world. In those eight years, housing prices rose way out of proportion to their true value. Gas prices hit $4 a gallon, food prices went to the moon...

Oppression? Tell it to the men, women, and children living on the streets and in shelters.

Oppression? Tell it to the Iraq veterans who got redeployed two, three... times.

Oppression? Tell it to working families who stand in line at food banks because they can't afford food!

Oppression? Tell it to the diabetics, and others with chronic illnesses whose meds aren't covered by their insurance. Tell it to the folks forced into bankruptcy by their medical bills.

The gilded ones whose belief system made this mess now cry because the people got tired of stepping in the mess, day after day and year after year, and voted them out.

HR 676 for Universal Health Care

If you love your health plan, this post is not for you. Go read something else.

However, if you're less than enchanted with your current health insurance plan (or lack thereof) read on.

Maybe you haven't heard about it. Its full name is House Resolution 676.

H.R.676 : United States National Health Insurance Act (or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act) (Introduced in House) To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/24/2007) Cosponsors (93) Committees: House Energy and Commerce; House Ways and Means; House Natural Resources Latest Major Action: 2/2/2007 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.

(a) In General- The health insurance benefits under this Act cover all medically necessary services, including at least the following:
(1) Primary care and prevention.
(2) Inpatient care.
(3) Outpatient care.
(4) Emergency care.
(5) Prescription drugs.
(6) Durable medical equipment.
(7) Long term care.
(8) Mental health services.
(9) The full scope of dental services (other than cosmetic dentistry).
(10) Substance abuse treatment services.
(11) Chiropractic services.
(12) Basic vision care and vision correction (other than laser vision correction for cosmetic purposes).
(13) Hearing services, including coverage of hearing aids.
(b) Portability- Such benefits are available through any licensed health care clinician anywhere in the United States that is legally qualified to provide the benefits.
(c) No Cost-Sharing- No deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, or other cost-sharing shall be imposed with respect to covered benefits.

Sorry--boob jobs are apparently not covered.

If HR 676 sounds like a plan that might work for you, I guess the next step is to read up on it here:http://thomas.loc.gov and here: http://www.hr676.org

And finally, call your congressperson and tell him/her to get on board with this one.