Insurance Companies

ABC NEWS/GOOD MORNING AMERICA:
Senior With Fractured Back Battles UnitedHealthcare Oxford Health Insurance Company Medicare Advantage Plan

GMA segment shows UnitedHealthcare/Oxford’s Medicare Advantage Plan would not authorize woman’s care due to alleged age discrimination.
Audit shows Medicare Advantage providers with backlogs of unanswered patient complaints, plans that improperly denied claims, and concerns about marketing practices which do not follow government guidelines.

Duration : 0:7:51

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Technorati Tags: Advantage, Age, Coverage, denial, Discrimination?, Medicare, UnitedHealthcare/Oxford

http://www.news8.net/news/stories/1009/668931.html

WASHINGTON – Protesters chanted, “People not profits — Medicare for all,” while picketing WellPoint Insurance Company Thursday. The demonstration was part of a nine-city protest coordinated by the group “Mobilization for Health Care for All.”

WellPoint locked the lobby doors and police stood on guard. The protest was peaceful but pointed — with participants blaming the insurance companies for current problems and accusing the president of breaking his campaign promise to bring real reform.

And as Congress continues to work toward reform, the demonstrators feel their dream of a single-payer system is slipping further and further away. …

Not slipping away at
http://www.michaelmoore.com

Duration : 0:3:21

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Technorati Tags: 676, all, Barack, baucus, benjamin, care, civil, Congress, disobedience, for, health, healthcare, HR, max, medea, Medicare, obama, payer, protest, single, wellpoint

http://www.house.gov/paul

http://CampaignForLiberty.com

Government has been mismanaging medical care for more than 45 years; for every problem it has created it has responded by exponentially expanding the role of government.
Points to consider:
1.) No one has a right to medical care. If one assumes such a right, it endorses the notion that some individuals have a right to someone elses life and property. This totally contradicts the principles of liberty.
2.) If medical care is provided by government, this can only be achieved by an authoritarian government unconcerned about the rights of the individual.
3.) Economic fallacies accepted for more than 100 years in the United States has deceived policy makers into believing that quality medical care can only be achieved by government force, taxation, regulations, and bowing to a system of special interests that creates a system of corporatism.
4.) More dollars into any monopoly run by government never increases quality but it always results in higher costs and prices.
5.) Government does have an important role to play in facilitating the delivery of all goods and services in an ethical and efficient manner.
6.) First, government should do no harm. It should get out of the way and repeal all the laws that have contributed to the mess we have.
7.) The costs are obviously too high but in solving this problem one cannot ignore the debasement of the currency as a major factor.
8.) Bureaucrats and other third parties must never be allowed to interfere in the doctor/patient relationship.
9.) The tax code, including the ERISA laws, must be changed to give everyone equal treatment by allowing a 100% tax credit for all medical expenses.
Laws dealing with bad outcomes and prohibiting doctors from entering into voluntary agreements with their patients must be repealed. Tort laws play a significant role in pushing costs higher, prompting unnecessary treatment and excessive testing. Patients deserve the compensation; the attorneys do not.
10.) Insurance sales should be legalized nationally across state lines to increase competition among the insurance companies.
11.) Long-term insurance policies should be available to young people similar to term-life insurances that offer fixed prices for long periods of time.
12.) The principle of insurance should be remembered. Its purpose in a free market is to measure risk, not to be used synonymously with social welfare programs. Any program that provides for first-dollar payment is no longer insurance. This would be similar to giving coverage for gasoline and repair bills to those who buy car insurance or providing food insurance for people to go to the grocery store. Obviously, that could not work.
13.) The cozy relationship between organized medicine and government must be reversed.
Early on medical insurance was promoted by the medical community in order to boost re-imbursements to doctors and hospitals. That partnership has morphed into the government/insurance industry still being promoted by the current administration.
14.) Threatening individuals with huge fines by forcing them to buy insurance is a boon to the insurance companies.
15.) There must be more competition for individuals entering into the medical field. Licensing strictly limits the number of individuals who can provide patient care. A lot of problems were created in 20th century as a consequence the Flexner Report (1910), which was financed by the Carnegie Foundation and strongly supported by the AMA. Many medical schools were closed and the number of doctors was drastically reduced. The motivation was to close down medical schools that catered to women, minorities and especially homeopathy. We continue to suffer from these changes which were designed to protect physicians income and promote allopathic medicine over the more natural cures and prevention of homeopathic medicine.
16.) We must remove any obstacles for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current medical care. We must remove the threat of further regulations pushed by the drug companies now working worldwide to limit these alternatives.
True competition in the delivery of medical care is what is needed, not more government meddling.

Duration : 0:4:52

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Technorati Tags: care, congressman, costs, doctors, floor, government, health, healthcare, help, Insurance, medicaid, Medicare, medicine, more, obama, Obamacare, paul, ron, socialist, SPEECH, won't

REP. ANTHONY WEINER: Name a single thing a private insurance company does to make anyone healthier, to save anyone money. Health insurance companies operate like they’re supposed to. They’re businesses. They operate to make profits. How do you make profits? By giving away as little, and collecting as much. It’s the opposite of the imperative that we have as the representatives of the people.

But this is so utterly predictable because you didn’t vote for Medicare. Your party didn’t vote for Social Security. You had control of the House, the Senate, the Judiciary, the presidency for eight years and you didn’t do anything.

No, I shouldn’t say that. You passed Medicare Part D, which said, let’s see if we give them enough money if they’ll do the right thing. Donut hole, anyone?

You know, this is like Jabberwocky, which was the language spoken in Alice in Wonderland, isn’t that right Mrs. Baldwin? Through the Looking Glass. You know, if you say these words enough, sooner or later they take on a little life of their own. Well, you can feel free to do that, but the American people know you’re standing in defense of a system that everyone knows is broken, everyone knows is too expensive, everyone knows doesn’t work, and we were elected to change that.

Can’t name a single thing ourselves at
http://www.michaelmoore.com

Duration : 0:1:14

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Technorati Tags: anthony, care, Congress, gop, health, healthcare, industry, Insurance, Medicare, republicans, security, single-payer, social, weiner

Hi. Im Doctor Ron. I am a retired physician, 38 years in private practice. I testified in the US House of Representatives about HMO abuses. So, lets talk about health insurance companies. With apologies to Dr. Seuss, here is Sam I Am the Insurance Man

SAM I AM—THE INSURANCE MAN
By Ron Bronow, M.D.
No risk too great, no risk too small
Why, we will take no risk at all
Be it thyroid or liver or enlarging cyst
Well write a clause that it does pre-exist
Well search and well search til we cant search no more
Until we can PROVE that youve had it before
Forget any job where a workers been ill
The premiums youll swallow are too big a pill
Woe be unto you if you change your employ
A loss of insurance will bring you no joy
If you have asthma, glaucoma or gout
Well write up a clause that will keep you out
Toenail fungus and acne, well make you a captive
Our denial of care will be retroactive
Your toenails werent mentioned on the application you made
Youll have to return all the benefits we paid
We will tell our underwriters
To deny insurance to firefighters
For our customers in Maine, your moneys well spent
Well raise your premiums 18 per cent
For your HMO problems, our response will be fine
If you have a few hours to wait on the line
And if you need an M.R.I. for that bad pain behind your eye
Sorry, that is a zone thats still quite gray, so for that test we will not pay
And if you have cancer we must be judgmental
That drug you MUST have is experimental
If you protest, please be a good sport
If you dont die first, you can take us to Court
Unless youre in an ERISA plan
Your right to sue, that law does ban
So if you get sick, you must rest assured
If I am in charge you wont be insured
But NOW were for a national plan
Well tell the President, Yes we can
Many millions more well insure
With no public option our profits secure
No Socialist plan will dare come our way
Campaign contributions to all we will pay
Now here is a fact not voiced in the caucus
It cost us a bundle to fish with Max Baucus
No premium restrictions can be in this bill
Our CEOs ONLY make 3 to 6 mil
We pay lots of taxes, that sure strikes a nerve
But they cant touch the billions we keep in reserve.
The research we quote from the Lewin group is fair
So what if its owned by United Health Care
In conclusion, then, whats good for us, I KNOW youll say
That must be good for the U.S.A.

Now LISTEN UP EVERYBODY. In spite of the well organized hysteria out there, there are NO DEATH PANELS. Our Medicare patients will NOT lose needed care. We need freedom of choice and high quality care, not scare tactics and lies. We need physicians to establish scientific guidelines for medical care. Only physicians, not insurance companies or bureaucrats can change the way we physicians practice medicine. We need insurance company reforms, like a commission to justify insurance premiums and evaluate how much they really make, so we dont all go broke. We dont need single payer health care, where the budget, not the needs of the patient, drives the system. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada found that Canadians suffer physically and financially while waiting for treatment in their government run health care system. We need a uniquely American system, one that fits the needs of our patients.
What can you do? . Link Sam I Am to every one you know, friends, relatives, your Senators and Congressman. If you have any media contacts, use them. Finally, for accurate information about health care, go to consumerwatchdog.org

Duration : 0:5:7

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Technorati Tags: AARP, abuses, campaign, Canadian, CEO, clauses, consumer watchdog.org, contributions, death panels, delay, denials, Dr. Ron, ERISA, experimental, firefighters, fraud, HMO, illnesses, Insurance, Lewin, lobbyists, loss, Maine, Max Baucus, Medical, Medicare, obama, pharmaceutical, pre-existing, premium, premiums, private, profits, protest, Public, Reform, reserves, risk, Sam Man, scare, Senate, Seuss, single-payer, socialist