Health insurance IS NOT health care, it's profit on human suffering

By GottaLaff

My Twitter pal Blondetwit has written an excellent piece. It provides more clarity than nearly anything else I've read on this subject. It explains the fundamentals of health insurance, as well as car, life, and fire insurance, and puts them all in perspective with regard to human lives.

She starkly lays out what Americans need to understand, that health insurance is a business that makes money on our health, our vulnerability, our very lives. And she does it from the p.o.v. of a former life insurance agent, which gives her more credibility by far than the fear mongering punditiots on the Tee Vee Machine.

Here are a few excerpts:

Consider this as your definitive argument regarding health care, health insurance and health insurance reform:

Health Insurance is NOT health care. Health insurance at its core, relies on risk versus reward, which equates to one thing: profit on human suffering. [...]

I come from a long line of life insurance agents, and was one myself. I consider it one of the most important purchases for any family, or any business. Everyone WILL die. Life Insurance allows survivors to carry on without financial tragedy, etc. Car insurance is based upon any individual's ability to maintain their PRIVILEGE to drive a car. Some fail that test, and there are always alternatives to driving, and not having coverage or not being able to drive does not create a moral dilemma. Fire insurance for your home or business, same thing basically as car insurance. No one lives or dies based on an insurance company's decision to cover or not to cover.

Health Insurance, by it's very nature, the same as car insurance or fire insurance, can exist based only upon a healthy and robust business model that can attract investors, or others to be mutually insured (as in mutual insurers, not stock insurers). [...]

An insurer will make the decision as to who lives and who dies. That decision is for God, the Universe, or how or whatever you believe - not a pencil pusher in a cubicle.

We must permanently unlink "Health Care" and "Insurance". The two cannot co-exist in a moral model. [...]

Health Insurance is NOT Health Care. It is profit taking based on who lives and who dies. That, my friends, is immoral.

There is no other argument here. And your failure to understand that argument is now in your hands.

It can't get clearer than that. Please go read the entire post.

Seniors cutting back on medications, food

By GottaLaff

Why is President Obama rushing into all this crazy, wacky health care stuff? Hey, relax, take it easy, we have all the time in the world... if you don't count the part where you die:

Some senior citizens are making drastic cuts to their medical and food budgets due to the recession, a U.S. survey suggests.

The survey by The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior group, conducted during a three-month period earlier this year, indicates 42 percent of seniors had either postponed filling their prescription medications or were taking a smaller dosage than prescribed by their physicians.

The survey of more than 1,040 respondents age 65 and older also says 62 percent had cut back on doctor visits or outpatient services and 77 percent had reduced their spending on food items. [...]

Thirty-two percent of respondents report that their drug plan increased its co-pay or co-insurance in 2009; 18 percent say they would have to postpone their retirement; and 6 percent report having to take Social Security earlier than expected due to job cuts.

Go ahead,Rushpublics, "stall", "kill"... literally.

Research Firm Cited by GOP Is Owned by Health Insurer

By GottaLaff

Why, what have we here? This goes nicely with Paddy's video, in which Eric Cantor showed us how his tap dancing lessons paid off:

The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.

To Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."

Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.

More specifically, the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association, a physician's group, of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied its parent company and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the "usual and customary" doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care.

Hmmm, that doesn't sound too kosher, now does it?

In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994. [...]

Lewin Group Vice President John Sheils said his firm had nothing to do with the allegedly flawed Ingenix reimbursement data. Lewin has gone through "a terribly difficult adjustment" since it was bought by UnitedHealth in 2007, because the corporate ownership "does create the appearance of a conflict of interest."

Awww, poor wittle gwoup had twouble adjusting. Need a hug?

Lewin's clients include the government and private groups with a variety of perspectives, including the Commonwealth Fund and the Heritage Foundation. A February report contained information that could be used to argue for a single-payer system, the approach most threatening to private insurers, Sheils noted.

But not all of the firm's reports see the light of day. [...]

In testimony last month to a House committee, Lewin disclosed its affiliation with UnitedHealth and Ingenix in its written submission, but in his oral testimony he did not bring it up until asked, according to a transcript. [...]

Lewin produced one of the most widely cited statistics of the health care debate: That, under a particular version of a public option, the number of people with private, employer-sponsored coverage would decline by more than 100 million.

Opponents of the public option have invoked the finding as proof that offering a government-run health plan would not just create competition for private insurers -- it would deprive people of their existing employer-sponsored coverage and lead to a government takeover of the health care system.[...]

Since then, adjusting its analysis to reflect the latest version of legislation drafted by House Democrats, Lewin has estimated that 88.1 million workers would shift from private, employer-sponsored insurance to the proposed public plan.

The Congressional Budget Office came to a different conclusion, saying that enrollment in the House Democrats' proposed public plan would total about 11 million to 12 million people. [...]

Though the millions of people Lewin was describing would lose their current employer-sponsored coverage, they wouldn't be forced into a government-run health plan, Sheils said in an interview. Rather, they would be able to choose between the government plan and other private options.

"People would indeed lose what they have, but they might very well be better off," he said.

Bus. Ted.

H/t: Shoq

VIDEO: Former CIGNA executive says Michael Moore was right all along

By GottaLaff

Via DKos, a must-see:

[I]n an interview with Bill Moyers that aired tonight on PBS, Wendell Potter, former Head of Corporate Communications at CIGNA, admits that Michael Moore nailed it on the head in his movie, Sicko. It's a 30 minute interview that comes close to a confessional of the health insurance industry's enslavement to Wall Street, and I really really hope everybody in this country gets to see this. It's the only thing you'll ever need to show if anyone ever questions the public option or rambles on about the dangers of government bureaucrats.

How does one stop one's blood from boiling? Here is a partial transcript:

WENDELL POTTER: That means that part of the effort to discredit this film was to use lobbyists and their own staff to go onto Capitol Hill and say, "Look, you don't want to believe this movie. You don't want to talk about it. You don't want to endorse it. And if you do, we can make things tough for you."

BILL MOYERS: How?

WENDELL POTTER: By running ads, commercials in your home district when you're running for reelection, not contributing to your campaigns again, or contributing to your competitor.

BILL MOYERS: This is fascinating. You know, "Build awareness among centrist Democratic policy organizations--"

WENDELL POTTER: Right.

BILL MOYERS: "--including the Democratic Leadership Council."

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: Then it says, "Message to Democratic insiders. Embracing Moore is one-way ticket back to minority party status."

WENDELL POTTER: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: Now, that's exactly what they did, didn't they? They--

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: --radicalized Moore, so that his message was discredited because the messenger was seen to be radical.

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely. In memos that would go back within the industry — he was never, by the way, mentioned by name in any memos, because we didn't want to inadvertently write something that would wind up in his hands. So the memos would usually-- the subject line would be-- the emails would be, "Hollywood." And as we would do the media training, we would always have someone refer to him as Hollywood entertainer or Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, just to-- Hollywood, I think people think that's entertainment, that's movie-making. That's not real documentary. They don't want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth. They would want you to see this as just some fantasy that a Hollywood filmmaker had come up with. That's part of the strategy.

BILL MOYERS: So you would actually hear politicians mouth the talking points that had been circulated by the industry to discredit Michael Moore.

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: You'd hear ordinary people talking that. And politicians as well, right?

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: So your plan worked.

WENDELL POTTER: It worked beautifully.

BILL MOYERS: The film was blunted, right?

WENDELL POTTER: The film was blunted.

The entire video and transcript here.

This is what we're up against. The Rushpublics care nothing about the health and well-being of America. Nothing.

H/t: Shoq

VIDEO-- Shuster to Dem: How Can We Believe You're Not Influenced By All The Money You Get From Insurance Companies?

By GottaLaff



David Shuster needs his own show already. Okay? Okay.

$1.4 Million a Day on Health Care Lobbying

We're going to have to be on top of this. Jane at FDL has the Whip list.

"The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues," the Washington Post reports.

"The tactic is so widespread that three of every four major health-care firms have at least one former insider on their lobbying payrolls... The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight."