Tag: Private Insurance

Around the same time that the health care reform act was being hotly debated, several months back, I wrote extensively about my own experiences.  I’ve struggled with chronic illness the whole of my life, and so not having health insurance was not exactly any bargaining chip for me.  The no-insurance option shouldn’t have to be anyone’s experience, yet this is still true for many I know.  Many people my age (thirty) and younger who have had to endure extended periods of unemployment due to the economy must depend on benevolent parents, should they be young enough, or instead beg for whatever available government coverage can be achieved.  At worst, they must make do with no coverage, hoping and praying that they don’t get seriously sick.  My sister is a prime example of the risk you take when you don’t have health insurance.  An injury, followed in rapid succession by an illness, required extensive care, depleting what little savings she had and leaving her in debt.  She always worked somewhere, but only managed to find jobs in the service industry, low-wage endeavors that did not provide insurance to employees.      

from the ConsumerWatchdog.org

(Click for Larger Image)

What the loss of the Public Option really Means …

Good bye competitive choice …

HELLOOOO … More of the Same!

Real people … who we knew and loved … who died unnecessarily in the U.S.

Real Life Stories of Americans

THE SILENT … NOW DECEASED

“My daughter got sick with cancer after her husband lost his job. She never told anyone she was sick because she knew the financial hardship it would cause and eventually the hospital would take their house for unpaid medical bills. We lost her in the following spring … We read her diary and learned all she was feeling and thinking. Now I wonder how many others are just like her in this America? And how many before her?”

Deaths due to Preventable Diseases: Dead Last

Rankings 1st to 19th. France, Japan, Australia, Spain, Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Portugal, United States

http://www.medicareforall.org/…

Rep Alan Grayson’s Apology



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Well, I would like to Apologize —

I would like to Apologize to the Dead.

44789 Americans die every year because they HAVE NO Health Insurance,

according to this Harvard Study.  http://grayson.house.gov

That is more than 10 x the number of Americans who’ve died in the War in Iraq

It’s more than 10 x the number of Americans who died in 9/11

but that was just once.

THIS IS EVERY SINGLE YEAR!

Take a look at this — read it and weep.

and I mean that Read it and WEEP!

Let’s remember we should ‘care about people’ — EVEN after they’re born.

Finally a Democrat, willing to fight Fire with Fire — I mean extreme Rhetoric with Rhetoric!

Kudos to Alan Grayson who has the guts to dish back to the GOP, the same  “strong language” — that they’ve been dishing out for months!!!

Whose Side Are You On?  by Alan Grayson by Alan Grayson:

Last night, I went onto the House floor and did something that the Republicans aren’t used to.  I told the truth about the Republican health care plan.  The plan is simple:

  1. Don’t get sick.

  2. If you do get sick…

  3. Die quickly.

Sounds about right! The Party of No, Knows one thing — How to say NO!

It’s not like Grayson didn’t use any Facts to back it up …

44789 / 365 = 122.7 people per day

Die for “Lack of health insurance” …

What does 120 People a Day look like, anyways?

That about what it takes to fill up 2 city buses …

Senators can afford to wait for Health Care reform — after all they ALREADY HAVE Health Insurance for their Families!

Trigger? — No Problem!

2013? — Who Cares!

Public Option only for the Few — No Worries …  ( — For Them! )

Montana Senators have a wide Menu of Health Care Options, so What’s the Rush?

Health — 2009 Plan Information for Montana

Nationwide Fee-for-Service Open to All

APWU Health Plan (APWU)

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Service Benefit Plan – Standard Option

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Service Benefit Plan – Basic Option

GEHA Benefit Plan (GEHA)

GEHA High Deductible Health Plan

Mail Handlers Benefit Plan

Mail Handlers Benefit Plan (HDHP)

Mail Handlers Benefit Plan Value

NALC

SAMBA

State Specific HMO, HDHP and CDHP Plans

Aetna HealthFund (CDHP/HDHP) – South, Southeast & Western MT

New West Health Services – Most of Montana

No shortage of Insurance Options — in Montana!

Wyden amendment gaining support

By Tony Romm, The Hill – 09/22/2009

An amendment to the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare bill that would permit employees to shop around for health insurance policies is slowly gaining momentum on the Hill.

The idea, pitched by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) last week, would open the proposed “insurance exchange” — where consumers can compare and purchase insurance plans — to Americans who already receive coverage from their employers.

…

What has made Wyden’s proposal especially appealing today, however, is the Congressional Budget Office’s recent cost estimate. By their math, his amendment would reduce the bill’s impact on the deficit by about $1 billion over the next 10 years.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-…

Health Reform’s Missing Ingredient

By Ron Wyden, Senator D-OR, NYTimes Op-Ed

September 17, 2009

The various bills making their way through Congress would, as the president explained, provide some consumer choice by establishing large marketplaces where people could easily compare insurance plans and pick the one that best suits their needs.

[…]

The problem with these bills, however, is that they would not make the exchanges available to all Americans. Only very small companies and those individuals who can’t get insurance outside of the exchange – 25 million people – would be allowed to shop there. This would leave more than 200 million Americans with no more options, private or public, than they have today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09…

Wait a second, I thought the Public Option, would give us a Choice —

give US ALL a Choice?

The Insurance Exchange will be closed to “more than 200 million Americans”?

that must be a typo!?!

Poll Finds Most Doctors Support Public Option

by Joseph Shapiro, NPR — September 14, 2009

When polled, “nearly 3/4 of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options,”

[…]

Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, conducted a random survey, by mail and by phone, of 2,130 doctors. They surveyed them from June right up to early September.

Most doctors – 63 percent – say they favor giving patients a choice that would include both public and private insurance.

[…]

another 10 percent of doctors say they favor a public option only; they’d like to see a single-payer health care system. Together, the two groups add up to 73 percent.

http://www.npr.org/templates/s…

Hmmm? I wonder if Doctors, know anything about our Broken Insurance System?

Ya think!?

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, interviews Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, regarding a Robust Public Option:

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Grijalva, I also want to ask you about Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus and his close ties to the healthcare industry. […]

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think the product that has come out from his committee and himself, I really believe that it has no legitimacy in this debate. It’s an insider product. It’s there to protect the industry. It is not there to try to look for that middle ground. He is key in holding up deliberations, has been key in trying to work on a consensus, but everything you see in his legislation had to be approved by the industry before it became part of the plan. So I don’t think it’s legitimate.

[…] I consider Senator Baucus’s proposal to be essentially an insider trader move to protect an industry and really doesn’t have validity at all, both political validity or content validity.

SurveyUSA conducted a Poll in Mid-August — prior to Obama’s well-received Speech in September — and they found that across the spectrum of Demographics Groups, a majority of Americans thought it was Extremely Important to have a Choice of a Public Option!

SurveyUSA Poll

Here is the Question which was asked, in a Survey of 1200 Americans, from all around the Country:

In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance — extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?

All Groups

Margin of Sampling Error: ± 2.9%

Survey by SurveyUSA

Geography: USA 50 States

Data Collected: 08/19/2009

Release Date: 08/20/2009

Sponsor: MoveOn.org PAC

Well according to this former HMO Medical Director, she traded Necessary Patients Care, for Career Advancement and a 6-figure Salary:

Linda Peeno MD, testifies



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Question: Are the Patients, who are Denied Care, to save the Insurance Companies Money — DO those Patients have a RIGHT to their Health Care?

Or are Those Patients simply a Commodity — a “Cost Center” — that must be constantly constrained?