Please read this article: “The Health Care Chamber of Horrors: Choose Your Bureaucrat!”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-fisher/the-health-care-chamber-o_b_219564.html
Quoted from the article:
"Well, government is not the only place where bureaucrats work. They are ubiquitous in those wonderful companies we pay to bring us our health insurance policies. . . .
"Consider this mini-chamber of horrors, culled from a recent and highly dramatic House hearing chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman of California.
Robin Beaton, 59, found out last June she had an aggressive form of breast cancer and needed surgery -- immediately. But just days before her double mastectomy, she found out that her insurance provider would not cover the procedure. (In the industry, they call it "rescission.") . . .
"And Peggy Raddatz testified on behalf of her late brother, who was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkin's type lymphoma. In the midst of his chemotherapy treatment, his coverage was cancelled and he was not able to receive the stem cell transplant needed to save his life. . . .
"These are but a few of the thousands of people who thought their premiums entitled them to be treated. And if you think these are extraordinary cases, consider this:
"BLUE CROSS OF CALIFORNIA, A SUBSIDIARY OF WELLPOINT, ENCOURAGED EMPLOYEES THROUGH PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS TO CANCEL THE HEALTH INSURANCE POLICIES OF INDIVIDUALS WITH EXPENSIVE ILLNESSES. . One Blue Cross employee earned a perfect score of "5" for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.
"Blue Cross of California and two other insurers saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders over a five-year period.
Only a single-payer approach to healthcare reform will end the inhumanity of our failed healthcare insurance system, where profits are more important than patients’ health, and where people die because of it.
Thank you for your wonderful work for honesty and integrity in healthcare reform!
Here is some more information--it's a sorry system all around:
SENATORS WHO SIGNED LETTER OPPOSING PUBLIC HEALTH PLAN TOOK $17.7 MILLION IN CAMPAIGN CASH FROM HEALTH CARE/INSURANCE INDUSTRIES
http://www.campaignmoney.org/pressroom/2009/06/08/senators-who-signed-letter-opposing-public-health-plan-took-17-7-million-in-campaign-cash-from-health-care-
Quoted from the article:
"The Senators have collectively taken $17.7 million from insurance and health care interests, according to data analyzed at the Center for Responsive Politics website, opensecrets.org. That amounts to nearly $2 million per Senator over their careers.
“Americans want a government that is responsive to our needs, not a Congress that listens to its donors from the insurance and health care industry,” commented David Donnelly, national campaigns director of Public Campaign Action Fund. “These Senators appear to be carrying water for their donors at the expense of advancing health care reform.”
All nine Senators sit on the Senate Finance Committee, which is actively engaged in debating health care reform. The nine signers include
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa),
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah),
Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.),
Jim Bunning (R-Ky.),
Mike Crapo (R-Idaho),
Pat Roberts (R-Kan.),
John Ensign (R-Nev.),
Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), and
John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was the committee’s only Republican Senator not to sign. Sen. Snowe has taken $1.1 million from the same interests, less than all but two of the signers."
TAKE ACTION:
1. Send your free fax to Obama and to your Senators and Representatives. Here’s a quick and easy way to fax them:
<a href="http://www.1payer.net/faxapp/"> http://www.1payer.net/faxapp/</a>
2. ASK President Obama to support Single Payer reform and to look at the billions in savings that would occur with Single Payer reform. Ask him to insist that the Congressional Budget Office evaluate the finances of the Single Payer plans.</i> People are dying because of our current healthcare system. Single payer reform is a human right!
In addition to the faxes in #1 above, please:
COMMENT HERE: http://www.healthreform.gov/contact/index.html
AND HERE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
CALL AND FAX: Phone: Comments: 202-456-1111; Switchboard: 202-456-1414; FAX: 202-456-2461
Comment, call, and fax every day!
3. ASK your Senators to support and co-sponsor S 703, The American Health Security Act.
ASK your Representatives to support and co-sponsor HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act. (83 Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors so far).
Let your Senators and Representatives know the bottom line:
• VOTE FOR SINGLE PAYER AND WE WILL VOTE FOR YOU.
• OPPOSE SINGLE PAYER AND WE WILL OPPOSE YOU, AND WORK FOR YOUR DEFEAT IN THE NEXT ELECTION.
You can find your legislators’ contact information here: <a href="http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml">http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml</a>
<blockquote>I think we need health care changes...</blockquote>
Such as? I'd be interested to hear some specifics.
<blockquote>...[A]nd now sees he can make a lot more as a whistle blower.</blockquote>
So, who's going to pay him all that dough? Who, but the industry he left, can afford to? CMD for one isn't exactly rolling in it.
I applaud that finally an insider has come out. Such must have been the courage of the German soldiers to end Hilter's rule at Valkyrie . We are facing the kind of tyranny from Corporate for profit Insurance companies as the Germans faced. Then again we see the black shirts spouting the party line, lying to the people, using fear, propaganda and misinformation to spread their hold on America's future.
I have faith in the American people and the power of social networks to rip the veil away and see the tyranny behind these greedy corporate captains We will rise up as a people against the tyranny.It is not just the Iranian people who live under a theocracy but also the american worker under the theocracy of corporate power.
And this must end.
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