Arthur Caplan, (Ph.D. my Ass) sounds more like a Snake Oil salesman for Big Pharma to me!!! ~LisaMarie~
From: BVProductions (146303785)
Date: 10/8/2009 6:46:28 PM
Subject: MSNBC: Quit whinin', healthcare workers!
Anyone with some common sense can see how many things are wrong with this article....
News? Po-leaseeee!
-------------
By Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
msnbc.com contributor
Enough already with the whining, moaning, demonstrating and protesting by health care workers. Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, nurses’ aides, and anyone else who has regular contact with patients ought to be required to get a flu shot or find another line of work.
The California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee have issued statements that individuals should be able to refuse the vaccine. The New York State Public Employees Federation said that “vaccination for influenza is not as effective in the control of disease as vaccination for diseases such as polio, measles and mumps.” Other health groups wanted to know why those who preferred to shun the shot could not simply wear masks.
Last week hundreds of people showed up in Albany, N.Y., at a rally to protest New York State’s plan to require all state workers to get both an annual flu shot and a swine flu vaccine. Most at the rally said their rights were being infringed.
Excuse me? What rights might those be? The right to infect your patient and kill them? The right to create havoc in the health care workforce if swine flu hits hard? The right to ignore all the evidence of safety and efficacy of vaccines thus continuing to promulgate an irrational fear on the part of the public of the best protection babies, pregnant women, the elderly and the frail have against the flu? Those rights?
Many hospitals in Illinois, Washington, Missouri, Georgia and Maryland are putting in place flu shot mandates. My own institution, the University of Pennsylvania Health System and its affiliated, top-ranked Children’s Hospital are leading the way in getting mandates moving. Why? The answer is simple: The vaccine will save lives.
Nothing works as well as vaccines to prevent getting the flu and transmitting it others. Masks may help, but still 20 percent of those who wear them get sick. There is no evidence that vitamins, special diets, fresh air or any other alternative ideas does anything to make flu viruses less nasty. And all we really have to fight swine flu are ventilators, some drugs that may or may not work and the new vaccine.
Flu activity around the country
A state-by-state look at the geographical spread of both seasonal flu and swine flu (H1N1) in the United States.
The medical establishment has been recommending that kids get flu shots forever. The state of New Jersey just put into practice a law requiring flu shots for young schoolchildren in day care and preschool. The U.S. Armed Forces has no time for anyone who will not get a flu shot. If you want to legally immigrate to this country you have to roll up your sleeve. Why should health care workers be treated any differently?
I understand that there are a few people who have medical reasons not to get a flu shot. Those people are and should be exempt. But that is not the issue driving opposition to mandates. When there is push back it is based on the notion that the individual’s rights are being trampled in the name of the common good.
Look, there are legitimate issues that ought to be debated whenever someone says you must do something to benefit others ranging from taxation to restrictions on driving under the influence. But health care workers' own code of ethics dictates that they put the interests of others — their patients — first.
Getting a flu shot is the least those who claim to be bound by professional ethics ought to do. It's time to man-up and protect those at risk in our hospitals and nursing homes, along with each other, and make getting a flu shot a part of the responsibility of being a healer.
Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33210502/ns/health-health_care
Showing posts with label Health-Care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health-Care. Show all posts
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Why Would We Let Them Rig the Game?
From: The Man Common
Dylan Ratigan
September 29, 2009
Why Would We Let Them Rig the Game?
Why is health insurance the only business that has an exemption from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act other than Major League Baseball? If the delivery of taxpayer trillions by our politicians to the banks to support their fraudulently paid bonuses hasn't shown you what our current government's values are, check this link out.
Through the governmental negligence that we as voters allowed, a health care system was created in which a single health care company controls at least 30 percent of the insurance market in 95% of the country, including states like the following:
Maine, where Wellpoint controls 71% of the market.
North Dakota, where Blue Cross controls 90% of the market.
Arkansas, where Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 75% of the market.
Alabama, where Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 83% of the market.
This monopoly, combined with the misaligned incentives that trap people in employer-based health care, is causing the skyrocketing health care costs that are hurtling our nation towards bankruptcy.
I don't know what's worse: that most Republicans seem to be against ending this unfair legal protection for an entrenched industry that is ruining our country with their non-competitive practices, or that most Democrats seem to be threatening this arrangement only as a bargaining chip to push for a meaningless public option that wouldn't be accessible to almost 85% of the population?
Instead of improving our country, through creating and enforcing free and fair markets, our politicians are currently engaging in backroom deals, most of which protect the very companies who profit the most from these disastrous outdated systems -- industries like health insurance and big Pharma.
While we clearly have the ability as a group of 305 million to update the system that is American Health Care and move our country into the 21st century in the process, it's becoming clear that we may not have the leaders to do it.
Instead of seeking answers to the problem of paying for and providing medicine, we are doing the exact opposite. Taxpayers' money is being played with by politicians who are desperately trying to protect the competition-stifling, false security of the monopolistic employer-based health care system and its outdated, over-charging, under-delivering ways. Given the least consideration are those affected the most -- the patients and the doctors who care for them.
This country's founders built an ingenious system of checks and balances for a reason: to ensure that no special interest or group could use government power to commandeer the creative and economic wealth of our nation to their own ends. How much longer must we live in a country where the citizens are subservient to the banks, health insurance companies and any other special interest able to control our government at the expense of our the most basic principles of fairness, our future as a nation and, as a result, our freedom?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/why-would-we-let-them-rig_b_302480.html
Dylan Ratigan
September 29, 2009
Why Would We Let Them Rig the Game?
Why is health insurance the only business that has an exemption from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act other than Major League Baseball? If the delivery of taxpayer trillions by our politicians to the banks to support their fraudulently paid bonuses hasn't shown you what our current government's values are, check this link out.
Through the governmental negligence that we as voters allowed, a health care system was created in which a single health care company controls at least 30 percent of the insurance market in 95% of the country, including states like the following:
Maine, where Wellpoint controls 71% of the market.
North Dakota, where Blue Cross controls 90% of the market.
Arkansas, where Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 75% of the market.
Alabama, where Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 83% of the market.
This monopoly, combined with the misaligned incentives that trap people in employer-based health care, is causing the skyrocketing health care costs that are hurtling our nation towards bankruptcy.
I don't know what's worse: that most Republicans seem to be against ending this unfair legal protection for an entrenched industry that is ruining our country with their non-competitive practices, or that most Democrats seem to be threatening this arrangement only as a bargaining chip to push for a meaningless public option that wouldn't be accessible to almost 85% of the population?
Instead of improving our country, through creating and enforcing free and fair markets, our politicians are currently engaging in backroom deals, most of which protect the very companies who profit the most from these disastrous outdated systems -- industries like health insurance and big Pharma.
While we clearly have the ability as a group of 305 million to update the system that is American Health Care and move our country into the 21st century in the process, it's becoming clear that we may not have the leaders to do it.
Instead of seeking answers to the problem of paying for and providing medicine, we are doing the exact opposite. Taxpayers' money is being played with by politicians who are desperately trying to protect the competition-stifling, false security of the monopolistic employer-based health care system and its outdated, over-charging, under-delivering ways. Given the least consideration are those affected the most -- the patients and the doctors who care for them.
This country's founders built an ingenious system of checks and balances for a reason: to ensure that no special interest or group could use government power to commandeer the creative and economic wealth of our nation to their own ends. How much longer must we live in a country where the citizens are subservient to the banks, health insurance companies and any other special interest able to control our government at the expense of our the most basic principles of fairness, our future as a nation and, as a result, our freedom?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/why-would-we-let-them-rig_b_302480.html
Sunday, July 12, 2009
What does This tell you about health care in America?
Everyone that I know, is going through this insurance Nightmare.
I wonder if anyone suggested, that He try Colloidal Silver? Corporate interest care Nothing about "We the People", showing us that Money is their bottom line. ~LisaMarie~
This story will make you hope and pray you don't get sick
By Mike Thomas
Dick Turrill was too young to die and too old to save.
He was in desperate need of fast medical care but had an insurance company that balked at providing it.
His battle for life gives disturbing insight into the bureaucratic maze of an industry that holds our lives in its hands.
I met Dick, 64, right before he was about to give up the fight.
He lives in Ormond Beach, where he retired as postmaster in 2006, with his wife, Pam.
They are an old-school couple. Together 38 years, they take pride in having always played by the rules, working hard, paying their bills, planning for retirement, buying the best health-insurance policy available.
Last June, Dick found himself getting easily winded, having to take three and four breaks just to cut the grass.
Doctors at the University of Florida Shands hospital eventually diagnosed him with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). It is a disorder in which bone marrow produces misshapen blood cells. It often is a precursor to leukemia.
Dick was treated with chemotherapy to clear out the bad cells, and then infused with donated blood to replace them.
This only was a stopgap.
The doctors gave him a year to live if he did not have a bone-marrow transplant. It is an elaborate procedure, requiring weeks of hospitalization and months of out-patient care. The cost is about $500,000, according to the National Foundation for Transplants.
Shands could do the transplant but was not on the list of facilities under contract to Dick's insurance carrier, the Mail Handlers Benefit Plan.
So Dick went to the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. He was scheduled to have a port inserted in his chest for chemotherapy infusions, which precede the transplant. But then the insurance company did not renew its contract with Moffitt and Dick had to find another hospital.
That led him to the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dick says the delay cost him two months.
"Any delays increase the risk of mortality and morbidity," wrote Dr. Teresa Field, a specialist from Moffitt, about his need for quick treatment.
And then came more delays.
Bone-marrow transplants usually entail a heavy dose of chemotherapy to kill off the old bone marrow.
Such a dose can be fatal for someone Dick's age.
Specialists have modified the treatment, using lower doses of chemo, not quite killing off all the bone marrow but enough to do the transplant.
Dick and his doctors prepared for the procedure. But then the insurance company balked at paying for it, saying the University of North Carolina protocol only would be covered if part of a clinical trial.
"We hope this information is helpful and thank you for this opportunity to assist you in this manner," a letter from the insurer concluded.
The Catch-22 was there are no such trials going on anywhere in the country.
The clock ticked while Dick appealed to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — the human-resources arm of the federal government.
This is when Dick called me. I sat in his living room, listening to him and Pam voice their fears and frustration, the piles of paperwork spread out on the coffee table. I couldn't help think how we once battled for our lives using clubs, then swords, then guns. Now we use pens and bureaucratic appeals.
On June 10, the Office of Personnel Management sided with Dick and ordered his insurer to cover the treatment.
But that was not the end of the story.
Dick turns 65 in October. At that point, Medicare becomes his primary health-care provider.
Dick said representatives from his insurance company told him it would not cover the cost of a transplant after that date. And Medicare did not cover the procedure.
This meant that if the procedure was delayed past September in the search for a suitable donor, Dick would be without coverage. He asked the Office of Personnel Management for clarification.
His response came in a letter dated July 1.
It said he would be covered under his insurer's "transplant network" until Sept. 30. After that date, his insurer would pay for any follow-up care up to a maximum of $200,000.
Dick was devastated. Even if he could get the transplant before October, he feared the resulting follow-up care would wipe out his and Pam's savings, forcing them both to live in debt the rest of their lives. And if he didn't survive the procedure, and it is a very risky one, she would be on her own.
"I don't know if I can commit to this," he said.
For the first time, I heard surrender in his voice.
After numerous calls to the insurance company, I finally got a call Friday afternoon from Jim Barnett. He is vice president of federal programs for Coventry Health, which administers the transplant program for the Mail Handlers Benefit Plan.
Barnett could not talk about Dick's case specifically without a signed release from him. So we muddled through this using a hypothetical patient.
Basically, the letter from the Office of Personnel Management was misleading.
A patient in Dick's position would be covered for a transplant after Sept. 30. He would be covered for the full million dollars, not $200,000.
Barnett said the letter from Personnel Management was referring to a scenario in which both Medicare and the insurance company covered the cost of a procedure.
In that case, Medicare would be the primary provider. The insurance company would be the secondary provider, covering any costs not picked up by Medicare up to the $200,000 maximum.
But since Medicare doesn't cover the transplant, this scenario does not apply. The insurance company becomes the primary provider and covers costs up to $1 million.
Ten minutes on the phone cleared up weeks of misinformation and confusion that had left Dick and Pam in turmoil, and the transplant staff at the University of North Carolina scrambling to find a donor to get Dick in before October.
What does that tell you about health care in America?
I called Dick to tell him. He couldn't believe it. His voice cracked, and he started crying.
I gave him contact names and he verified the information. He has heard from the hospital, which has begun testing blood samples to find a match.
For the first time in months, Dick can envision the life he had planned to live with Pam.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-mike-thomas-health-care-071209,0,516363.column
I wonder if anyone suggested, that He try Colloidal Silver? Corporate interest care Nothing about "We the People", showing us that Money is their bottom line. ~LisaMarie~
This story will make you hope and pray you don't get sick
By Mike Thomas
Dick Turrill was too young to die and too old to save.
He was in desperate need of fast medical care but had an insurance company that balked at providing it.
His battle for life gives disturbing insight into the bureaucratic maze of an industry that holds our lives in its hands.
I met Dick, 64, right before he was about to give up the fight.
He lives in Ormond Beach, where he retired as postmaster in 2006, with his wife, Pam.
They are an old-school couple. Together 38 years, they take pride in having always played by the rules, working hard, paying their bills, planning for retirement, buying the best health-insurance policy available.
Last June, Dick found himself getting easily winded, having to take three and four breaks just to cut the grass.
Doctors at the University of Florida Shands hospital eventually diagnosed him with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). It is a disorder in which bone marrow produces misshapen blood cells. It often is a precursor to leukemia.
Dick was treated with chemotherapy to clear out the bad cells, and then infused with donated blood to replace them.
This only was a stopgap.
The doctors gave him a year to live if he did not have a bone-marrow transplant. It is an elaborate procedure, requiring weeks of hospitalization and months of out-patient care. The cost is about $500,000, according to the National Foundation for Transplants.
Shands could do the transplant but was not on the list of facilities under contract to Dick's insurance carrier, the Mail Handlers Benefit Plan.
So Dick went to the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. He was scheduled to have a port inserted in his chest for chemotherapy infusions, which precede the transplant. But then the insurance company did not renew its contract with Moffitt and Dick had to find another hospital.
That led him to the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dick says the delay cost him two months.
"Any delays increase the risk of mortality and morbidity," wrote Dr. Teresa Field, a specialist from Moffitt, about his need for quick treatment.
And then came more delays.
Bone-marrow transplants usually entail a heavy dose of chemotherapy to kill off the old bone marrow.
Such a dose can be fatal for someone Dick's age.
Specialists have modified the treatment, using lower doses of chemo, not quite killing off all the bone marrow but enough to do the transplant.
Dick and his doctors prepared for the procedure. But then the insurance company balked at paying for it, saying the University of North Carolina protocol only would be covered if part of a clinical trial.
"We hope this information is helpful and thank you for this opportunity to assist you in this manner," a letter from the insurer concluded.
The Catch-22 was there are no such trials going on anywhere in the country.
The clock ticked while Dick appealed to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — the human-resources arm of the federal government.
This is when Dick called me. I sat in his living room, listening to him and Pam voice their fears and frustration, the piles of paperwork spread out on the coffee table. I couldn't help think how we once battled for our lives using clubs, then swords, then guns. Now we use pens and bureaucratic appeals.
On June 10, the Office of Personnel Management sided with Dick and ordered his insurer to cover the treatment.
But that was not the end of the story.
Dick turns 65 in October. At that point, Medicare becomes his primary health-care provider.
Dick said representatives from his insurance company told him it would not cover the cost of a transplant after that date. And Medicare did not cover the procedure.
This meant that if the procedure was delayed past September in the search for a suitable donor, Dick would be without coverage. He asked the Office of Personnel Management for clarification.
His response came in a letter dated July 1.
It said he would be covered under his insurer's "transplant network" until Sept. 30. After that date, his insurer would pay for any follow-up care up to a maximum of $200,000.
Dick was devastated. Even if he could get the transplant before October, he feared the resulting follow-up care would wipe out his and Pam's savings, forcing them both to live in debt the rest of their lives. And if he didn't survive the procedure, and it is a very risky one, she would be on her own.
"I don't know if I can commit to this," he said.
For the first time, I heard surrender in his voice.
After numerous calls to the insurance company, I finally got a call Friday afternoon from Jim Barnett. He is vice president of federal programs for Coventry Health, which administers the transplant program for the Mail Handlers Benefit Plan.
Barnett could not talk about Dick's case specifically without a signed release from him. So we muddled through this using a hypothetical patient.
Basically, the letter from the Office of Personnel Management was misleading.
A patient in Dick's position would be covered for a transplant after Sept. 30. He would be covered for the full million dollars, not $200,000.
Barnett said the letter from Personnel Management was referring to a scenario in which both Medicare and the insurance company covered the cost of a procedure.
In that case, Medicare would be the primary provider. The insurance company would be the secondary provider, covering any costs not picked up by Medicare up to the $200,000 maximum.
But since Medicare doesn't cover the transplant, this scenario does not apply. The insurance company becomes the primary provider and covers costs up to $1 million.
Ten minutes on the phone cleared up weeks of misinformation and confusion that had left Dick and Pam in turmoil, and the transplant staff at the University of North Carolina scrambling to find a donor to get Dick in before October.
What does that tell you about health care in America?
I called Dick to tell him. He couldn't believe it. His voice cracked, and he started crying.
I gave him contact names and he verified the information. He has heard from the hospital, which has begun testing blood samples to find a match.
For the first time in months, Dick can envision the life he had planned to live with Pam.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-mike-thomas-health-care-071209,0,516363.column
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Health Care Liars
Health Care Liars:
Posted by: "brembelia2004"
Mon May 25, 2009 4:04 pm (PDT)
What has happened to America?
Once upon a time everyone told the truth and anyone trying to lie to the public would be castigated roundly by everyone else. Over the last thirty years, have we become numb because we are lied to so consistently by those who claim they "have a right to do business" and "have a right to earn money" and "have a right to be successful anyway they can". Last time I looked into the Constitution or the now redacted Bill of Rights, they mentioned nothing about lying your face off so you can completely deceive your fellow citizens to have the "right" to become obscenely rich. When did God die and pass on this birth "right"?
The health care issue is warming up: Sen. Max Baucus is holding secret meetings this month in his senate committee to decide whether or not the new health care "reform" act will MANDATE that every adult in the US be FORCED to have sleazy, for-profit, rip-off health insurance, with precious little health CARE in the bargain. He says that current health care "has no structure". He confuses a gun to the head with beneficial structure.
I view it as FORCED INSURANCE PREMIUMS for the profiteering and enrichment of the already rich, and a complete joke, just like car insurance. I've been paying car insurance for decades without incident. If I had all that money back, there would be no need of a stimulus anything for the economy. It is BS like this that is creating poverty, but then again, the whole idea is to bring about a broken and poor public, another Indonesia, so the corporations will have lots and lots of cheap labor. I mean, just look at the UAW who are going back to work after giving up their pensions and taking a slashing cut in their salaries. If this is "recovery" I'd hate to see what evisceration looks like.
Sen. Max Baucus is the May DemoRat of the month winner for his really Right-wing take on single-payer health care along with his really Right-wing method of handling the whole thing, too, (bullying the other committee members (Sen. Bill Nelson) and holding secret meetings closed to the public with NO public in-put into the process because he already KNOWS we don't want what he is about to shove down our throats. He KNOWS he's in the process of doing the WRONG THINGS but he's going to do it anyway; conscience be damned!
I'm not sure exactly who took single-payer off the table. It was first announced by Nancy Pelosi, then President Obama flip-flopped from his campaign promises on single-payer, then Max Baucus announced closed hearings. I'm assuming it came down from the top since it looks like this president has decided to go with trickle-down economics instead of the bubble-up economics for which we all gave him our votes in the last election.
One thing that really burns my toast is the ease with which these people have become accustomed to lying to the American public. I pray for the days of over-sight when this kind of in-your-face deception would get you fined big time! We need to make lots of noise about being lied to so much. Life is difficult enough without all the liars getting a free pass. The politicians together with the businesses and their executives are contemptuous and
condescending of us, like drunk and abusive fathers who just doesn't know when to stop and clean up their act; compulsive money junkies who are willing to judas the world for their next insatiable money fix. Why are we tolerating these reprobates? After thirty years of being kicked around, have we become so used to it that it feels good? Think about it.
Komodo
Nothing changes if nothing changes
You will never get the truth from a pack of lies
Too much of anything and it becomes something else
CHECK THIS OUT:
Blue Cross Millionaires Are Scared to Compete With a Public Plan
Monday 25 May 2009
by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
A Blue Cross building in North Carolina. The health insurance company is running inaccurate television ads warning people against the prospect of a public health care option. (Photo: Bill Warren)
The boys running the show at Blue Cross in North Carolina are running scared. They're worried that President Obama is going to treat them like autoworkers and make them actually compete in the market. The Blue Cross boys think that they belong in the same league as the Wall Street bankers and should just be allowed to collect their multi-million-dollar salaries without being forced to worry about things like competition.
The basic story is that Blue Cross of North Carolina decided to jump the gun on President Obama and Congress and start running television ads telling people how awful a public health care plan would be. According to the ads, people enrolled in the public health care plan wouldn't have a choice of doctors, would face long waiting periods for appointments and procedures and would not even be able to get a clerk to answer questions on billing.
That sounds pretty awful, but if it were true, you have to wonder why Blue Cross of North Carolina is so worried. After all, President Obama is not proposing that anyone would be forced to join a public plan. He just proposed that people have the option to buy into a public plan. Is Blue Cross of North Carolina really that terrified that it will be unable to compete with a public plan that doesn't let patients choose their doctor, subjects them to long waits and doesn't answer questions about billing?
Of course, if the ads being planned by Blue Cross of North Carolina were accurate, then it would not be concerned about a public plan. The reason that Blue Cross of North Carolina is running the ads is that it knows the ads are not true. There is no reason to think that a public plan will offer less choice, require longer waits or provide poorer service than a private plan, like Blue Cross of North Carolina. And there are reasons for believing that a public plan might cost considerably less.
Specifically, the administrative expenses of a public plan like Medicare are far lower than the expenses for Blue Cross of North Carolina. According to its Annual Report, Blue Cross of North Carolina spent almost 15 percent of its premiums on administrative expenses in 2008. That came to more than $1.8 billion. This money would have been enough to cover the costs of insuring almost 600,000 kids through the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Just five years earlier, Blue Cross of North Carolina spent more than 22 percent of premiums on administrative expenses.
By comparison, Medicare spends only about 2 percent of its revenue on administrative expenses. Unlike Blue Cross of North Carolina, Medicare doesn't earn profits and doesn't pay high salaries to its top executives. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, Robert J. Greczyn Jr., the chief executive of Blue Cross of North Carolina, earned $3.2 million in 2007. That's enough to pay for a year's worth of SCHIP for 1,000 kids. Other top executives also drew salaries well in excess of $1 million, a pay range that exceeds the top levels in the public sector by an order of magnitude.
Given the high salaries that Blue Cross of North Carolina pays its top executives and the other administrative expenses that it bears as a result of being a private sector plan with high overhead, it is not surprising that it would be afraid of a public plan. A public plan would likely charge much lower prices, thereby pulling away a large share of Blue Cross of North Carolina's business. Insofar as it was able to hold on to its patients, Blue Cross of North Carolina would probably be forced to lower its prices - slashing its profit margins - in order to be able to compete. This is not a happy picture for any business: fewer customers and lower profit margins.
The answer, of course, is tough love. We just have to tell Blue Cross of North Carolina than it will have to learn to compete. If it can't beat out a public plan in market competition, then the public and the economy would be better served if it went into another line of business.
Bankers may have enough political power that they can milk the government without limits. However, this may not prove to be true for the health insurers. If President Obama continues to push for a public plan, the good folks running Blue Cross of North Carolina and the other insurers may actually have to work for their paychecks.
Posted by: "brembelia2004"
Mon May 25, 2009 4:04 pm (PDT)
What has happened to America?
Once upon a time everyone told the truth and anyone trying to lie to the public would be castigated roundly by everyone else. Over the last thirty years, have we become numb because we are lied to so consistently by those who claim they "have a right to do business" and "have a right to earn money" and "have a right to be successful anyway they can". Last time I looked into the Constitution or the now redacted Bill of Rights, they mentioned nothing about lying your face off so you can completely deceive your fellow citizens to have the "right" to become obscenely rich. When did God die and pass on this birth "right"?
The health care issue is warming up: Sen. Max Baucus is holding secret meetings this month in his senate committee to decide whether or not the new health care "reform" act will MANDATE that every adult in the US be FORCED to have sleazy, for-profit, rip-off health insurance, with precious little health CARE in the bargain. He says that current health care "has no structure". He confuses a gun to the head with beneficial structure.
I view it as FORCED INSURANCE PREMIUMS for the profiteering and enrichment of the already rich, and a complete joke, just like car insurance. I've been paying car insurance for decades without incident. If I had all that money back, there would be no need of a stimulus anything for the economy. It is BS like this that is creating poverty, but then again, the whole idea is to bring about a broken and poor public, another Indonesia, so the corporations will have lots and lots of cheap labor. I mean, just look at the UAW who are going back to work after giving up their pensions and taking a slashing cut in their salaries. If this is "recovery" I'd hate to see what evisceration looks like.
Sen. Max Baucus is the May DemoRat of the month winner for his really Right-wing take on single-payer health care along with his really Right-wing method of handling the whole thing, too, (bullying the other committee members (Sen. Bill Nelson) and holding secret meetings closed to the public with NO public in-put into the process because he already KNOWS we don't want what he is about to shove down our throats. He KNOWS he's in the process of doing the WRONG THINGS but he's going to do it anyway; conscience be damned!
I'm not sure exactly who took single-payer off the table. It was first announced by Nancy Pelosi, then President Obama flip-flopped from his campaign promises on single-payer, then Max Baucus announced closed hearings. I'm assuming it came down from the top since it looks like this president has decided to go with trickle-down economics instead of the bubble-up economics for which we all gave him our votes in the last election.
One thing that really burns my toast is the ease with which these people have become accustomed to lying to the American public. I pray for the days of over-sight when this kind of in-your-face deception would get you fined big time! We need to make lots of noise about being lied to so much. Life is difficult enough without all the liars getting a free pass. The politicians together with the businesses and their executives are contemptuous and
condescending of us, like drunk and abusive fathers who just doesn't know when to stop and clean up their act; compulsive money junkies who are willing to judas the world for their next insatiable money fix. Why are we tolerating these reprobates? After thirty years of being kicked around, have we become so used to it that it feels good? Think about it.
Komodo
Nothing changes if nothing changes
You will never get the truth from a pack of lies
Too much of anything and it becomes something else
CHECK THIS OUT:
Blue Cross Millionaires Are Scared to Compete With a Public Plan
Monday 25 May 2009
by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
A Blue Cross building in North Carolina. The health insurance company is running inaccurate television ads warning people against the prospect of a public health care option. (Photo: Bill Warren)
The boys running the show at Blue Cross in North Carolina are running scared. They're worried that President Obama is going to treat them like autoworkers and make them actually compete in the market. The Blue Cross boys think that they belong in the same league as the Wall Street bankers and should just be allowed to collect their multi-million-dollar salaries without being forced to worry about things like competition.
The basic story is that Blue Cross of North Carolina decided to jump the gun on President Obama and Congress and start running television ads telling people how awful a public health care plan would be. According to the ads, people enrolled in the public health care plan wouldn't have a choice of doctors, would face long waiting periods for appointments and procedures and would not even be able to get a clerk to answer questions on billing.
That sounds pretty awful, but if it were true, you have to wonder why Blue Cross of North Carolina is so worried. After all, President Obama is not proposing that anyone would be forced to join a public plan. He just proposed that people have the option to buy into a public plan. Is Blue Cross of North Carolina really that terrified that it will be unable to compete with a public plan that doesn't let patients choose their doctor, subjects them to long waits and doesn't answer questions about billing?
Of course, if the ads being planned by Blue Cross of North Carolina were accurate, then it would not be concerned about a public plan. The reason that Blue Cross of North Carolina is running the ads is that it knows the ads are not true. There is no reason to think that a public plan will offer less choice, require longer waits or provide poorer service than a private plan, like Blue Cross of North Carolina. And there are reasons for believing that a public plan might cost considerably less.
Specifically, the administrative expenses of a public plan like Medicare are far lower than the expenses for Blue Cross of North Carolina. According to its Annual Report, Blue Cross of North Carolina spent almost 15 percent of its premiums on administrative expenses in 2008. That came to more than $1.8 billion. This money would have been enough to cover the costs of insuring almost 600,000 kids through the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Just five years earlier, Blue Cross of North Carolina spent more than 22 percent of premiums on administrative expenses.
By comparison, Medicare spends only about 2 percent of its revenue on administrative expenses. Unlike Blue Cross of North Carolina, Medicare doesn't earn profits and doesn't pay high salaries to its top executives. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, Robert J. Greczyn Jr., the chief executive of Blue Cross of North Carolina, earned $3.2 million in 2007. That's enough to pay for a year's worth of SCHIP for 1,000 kids. Other top executives also drew salaries well in excess of $1 million, a pay range that exceeds the top levels in the public sector by an order of magnitude.
Given the high salaries that Blue Cross of North Carolina pays its top executives and the other administrative expenses that it bears as a result of being a private sector plan with high overhead, it is not surprising that it would be afraid of a public plan. A public plan would likely charge much lower prices, thereby pulling away a large share of Blue Cross of North Carolina's business. Insofar as it was able to hold on to its patients, Blue Cross of North Carolina would probably be forced to lower its prices - slashing its profit margins - in order to be able to compete. This is not a happy picture for any business: fewer customers and lower profit margins.
The answer, of course, is tough love. We just have to tell Blue Cross of North Carolina than it will have to learn to compete. If it can't beat out a public plan in market competition, then the public and the economy would be better served if it went into another line of business.
Bankers may have enough political power that they can milk the government without limits. However, this may not prove to be true for the health insurers. If President Obama continues to push for a public plan, the good folks running Blue Cross of North Carolina and the other insurers may actually have to work for their paychecks.
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