We will not ever get health care reform as long as health insurance cos. remain in business

[lefthandedlefty]

No matter what passes nothing will get any better if you get sick or have preexisting condition all they have to do is raise rates beyond what you can pay.They offered to cover you and didn`t cancell you so it is not their fault you dropped your policy.How many people can afford a thousand dollar a month premium or more or even 500 a month not me.I am not unemployed I am self employed and have no health insurance but I seriously doubt if I could afford a 100 a month.

[Cleita]

1. Exactly, which is why we have to use the free market to run them out of business.

We need to convince doctors and other health care providers to stop accepting insurance other than Medicare, Medicaid and other single payer govt. run health plans. They need to pledge to do 10% of their practice on a pro-bono basis for those who are uninsured and underinsured. They can charge fees on a sliding scale for people who are low income but not low enough to qualify for Medicaid. Once insurance is not accepted but people have something to fall back on, they will stop buying health insurance. Providers can run accounts receivable for those with good credit references to pay off large bills monthly. If two-thirds of health care providers do this, it won't be long before the health care outlaws are run out of Dodge. Then you can talk about getting an improved Medicare to everyone.

Another way is to convince your local governments to make it illegal to sell any health insurance that isn't non-profit and that denies coverage to anyone. Also, make sure there is a limit on what premiums they can charge. Make sure there are no deductibles and co-pays. See how many insurers hang around for that.

The third way, of course, is the ability of people to get Medicare if they want it. They should be able to because almost everyone gets FiCA deducted from their wages. They should be able to enjoy the benefits. This is of course the public option that got cut out of the byzantine health care bill that is being presented to the public.

It's going to take a big commitment from the health care providers themselves, like the Physicians For a National Health Plan, the Mad As Hell Doctors, the nurses unions to fight these corporations as a unified bloc or we won't be able to get it done just with Congress alone.

[amborin]

2. all they have to do is accuse you of "fraud"

"California recently dropped an attempt to enforce its anti-rescission law against a major insurer, saying that it was financially outgunned by the insurer's legal team.

The rescission law, according to the legislation, "shall not apply to a covered individual who has performed an act or practice that constitutes fraud or makes an intentional misrepresentation of material fact as prohibited by the terms of the plan or coverage."

Insurers today routinely claim that patients engaged in "fraud" or "intentional misrepresentation" when dropping them from coverage. Much depends on who defines the terms in the bill.

It won't be the federal government. There will be no federal agency tasked with overseeing the enforcement of the bill's rules. Rather, a Senate leadership aide told reporters in a briefing Saturday, individual states will police the new system.

That's a task the California Department of Managed Health Care was unable to perform when battling Anthem Blue Cross, which has rescinded 1,770 policies since 2004.

"In each and every one of those rescissions, the right to contest each, and that could tie us up in court forever," the department's director, Cindy Ehnes, told The Associated Press. A million-dollar fine was announced in March 2007, but has not been enforced.

If the enforcement for these regulations falls on the individual states, and the individual states will have to litigate them, which could take a very long time in each case. The regulations are unlikely to be uniformly enforced state to state--some of them have extremely proactive insurance commissioners and strong regulatory structures in place, others don't. And in the states that don't, don't expect insurers to end some of these practices out of the goodness of their hearts."

common dreams.org

[kenny blankenship]

4. but but you can take them to court !

You can take them to court - with all the resources you have, after bankruptcy, and with all the rest of your disease-shortened life to prove them in the wrong.

[amborin]

5. the state

of California did just that....and lost, time and again, or had to drop the lawsuits, due to not enough time or money....

the big corps WIN

[kenny blankenship]

6. But I'm sure the process will become more efficient & the log jam in the courts will clear, finally

-after the passage of TORT REFORM!

See, any problem residually clinging to a Repuke pro-business policy can always be fixed, by the application of more and harsher Repuke pro-business policies.

Let's say for example that insurance company greed has driven our national health care system into a death spiral of rising prices and disenrollment. (I know that's crazytalk - but just pretend!) That's not a problem The solution is this easy: deflect blame onto the little people, make it a law they HAVE to buy insurance and sick the IRS and the Federal Marshals on them if they don't comply. Hunt them down like dogs! One new layer of punitive Pro-business policy slapped down in time saves the bacon of another seemingly failed pro-business status quo. It's a virtuous circle I like to call "Progressive Privatization".

[leftstreet]

3. K&R

[Raster]

7. There you go: You have just stated the bald-faced truth that most would prefer not be stated.

We will never see meaningful and powerful health care reform as long as the "for profit" health insurance companies remain in business.

Dirty little secret: There is no real and compelling reason for the "for profit" health care insurers and their version of "managed health care" to exist, except to make a profit. Plain and simple. The industry completely exists to appropriate wealth from the monies spent on heath care in the United States, and then funnel those "profits" into select corporate coffers. We lead the world in health care costs per person. We place 37th in the world ranking of actual care rendered. And we still have millions and millions of citizens not covered and left untreated. One should be asking, "where the hell is all the money going?".

[gateley]

8. Yes. It's as simple as that. Which is why we need a government plan. nt

[rhett o rick]

9. Beware for statements like that CorpAmerica will arrest you for treason. nt

[RC]

10. One of the purposes of government is to provide for the general welfare of its citizens.

One of the purposes of government is to provide for the general welfare of its citizens. Our Constitution specifically mentions it - twice. Once in the preamble and again in the Article 8.

The Preamble starts out; "We the people..." So it would stand to reason that the general welfare clause pertains to the people collectively.

In Section 8, it specifies the powers of the Congress and again general welfare is mentioned in the same context as in the Preamble.

Section 8. reads in part:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and PROVIDE FOR THE common defense and GENERAL WELFARE of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;..."

So, if the government can lay and collect taxes, pay debts and is responsible for the general welfare of the citizens and if the general level of health of the citizens is necessarily a part of the general welfare, then providing for health care coverage is the responsibility of the government.

The general population of this country are therefore beneficiaries of this general welfare clause. Our government is charged with providing for the general welfare of the people. It is a right guaranteed in the Constitution. The general level of health affects the general welfare of the citizens. Right now, in this country, most of us are one accident, one cancer, one major health problem away from bankruptcy because we have a For Profit, Market Driven Health Care System that is geared for profit first over your health.

In other words, we are having this discussion because our health care has been turned into a For Profit, non-competitive, Market Based Commodity.

This country values profits over health. When our money runs out or if we cost the health insurance companies too much in claims, we become a liability to the health insurance companies and coverage stops. You are on your own and bankruptcy and/or death is often the result.

Because of this problem, the whole rest of the industrialized world has gone to some form of Single Payer, Universal Health Care. None of these countries want to go back to what they had before. And absolutely for sure none of these countries want anything to do with our broken health care system.

From the start, the insurance companies have made sure Single Payer was never even on the table. It should have been and it should be the major topic concerning health care reform. But it is not. Our government even went so far as to throw people in jail for trying to get Single Payer on the table. More proof that our government is not responsive to the people.

The other countries have already done the hard work of figuring out what works and what does not. All we would have to do is cherry pick from what does work from the other countries, then we could have the best health care in the world, at half the cost we are paying now, instead of the United States being #38 or so, with the level of affordable health care dropping and the costs skyrocketing.

How do we pay for it? That also is simple. With Single Payer, since you would no longer be paying exorbitant rates for mediocre, hit or miss non-competitive market driven health insurance coverage, you could afford to pay a modest tax increase. That would also mean more money in your pocket, since that would eliminate the For Profit Middle Man, co-pays and surprise non-itemized bills sent months after the fact. Health Care overhead going from 30-40% down to 3%. Savings you can put in your pocket. With Single Payer, businesses would not have to pay health insurance premiums and would have more money to operate on and/or hire more people and/or to grant pay raises to its current employees. As a bonus, all of these would help get the economy moving again.

Also, our defense budget is bigger than the rest of the world combined. There is no justification for why it needs to be any more than Russia and China's defense budgets combined. None. The money saved can be used to pay down the debt and rebuild our own crumbling infrastructure, with enough left over to fully cover paying for civilized Single Payer health care for all of our citizens.

I wrote this, so there are no copyright issues.
http://www.timws.com/page2.html

[quiet_please]

11. You do realize who administers

the Medicare program, right? It isn't the government. They contract with private insurance companies to pay the bills that come into the system from doctors, hospitals, and the like.

Just saying.

[eridani]

15. That is mere paperpushing

They don't have the power to kick anyone off Medicare or deny covered benefits. That is all they should EVER be allowed to do for anyone of any age.

[laughingliberal]

16. Oh, well, that changes everything! Let's give them all our money!

Why didn't you say so sooner???

It is sooo not the same thing that they manage the claims. They pay the claims according to Medicare's rules, not the rules of a private for-profit insurance company.

[applegrove]

12. They have such an easy business. They kick out people who are sick or

tell them they have reached a maximum. And when people finally get old and have more ailments Medicare takes over. Why they need more competition.

[Quantess]

13. I agree.

[Greyhound]

14. K&R. That's the inescapable truth behind this clusterfuck. n/t