That’s where a sick person files a major claim on an existing insurance policy, a policy that they have been paying premiums for for years. Maybe the condition is some kind of cancer or other condition that may require long-term treatment to assure recovery.
The standard insurance company policy is to comb through all the patient’s records to see if there is something they inadvertently forgot to admit to when they first got the policy, something like acne or a sprained ankle. The company then claims fraud, denies the claim and rescinds (or cancels) the policy.
The person who is responsible for discovering justification gets a bonus, and if they cancel enough policies over a year, they get a big raise. For killing people.
At an insurance company hearing this past Tuesday, insurance company executives declared that they would continue this policy, even if they were taking part in a reform plan intended to increase coverage.
Hello? Thanks for clearing up the confusion. We here were under the impression that public mandates or taxpayer spending meant that abuses would be curtailed or, like, go away. Now that we know that bad faith is the plan, we can make out plans, too.
Watch Sicko to understand about how the health insurance industry takes advantage of sick policyholders to reap obscene profits. And kill them. I’m uploading now.
Last week, when the case against Ted Stevens was dropped for prosecutorial mishandling, we heard about evidence that was withheld from the defense. It happens all the time, but rarely is it so severe that anything comes of it, at least not influencing the disposition of the case.
As in the Coleman/Franken case, the judge usually finds out about it and chews out the lawyers. Occasionally the judge will throw out a case.
Now if you were one of those defendants who doesn’t have a lot of money for expensive lawyers, you’d never even know it happened to you. They’d probably get away with it every time, which obviously is not the way the justice system is supposed to work in this country.
But for the case to be completely dropped, rather than merely seeking a retrial of some sort had to mean that the case was so ‘poisoned’ by whatever had been done that it could not be retried.
There was even speculation that the Bush administration was responsible for making sure that the case would inevitably be thrown out on appeal, thus being an embarrassment for everyone involved, except of course Ted Stevens, who is claiming that this is proof he never did any of the things that they said he did.
Not hardly.
Well, of course we assumed that maybe somebody would get a slap on the wrist, or some Bush appointee would get pushed out of their job a bit early and end up getting wealthy writing slanted books rewriting history as fiction and giving interviews on hate radio claiming persecution by liberal fascists.
Not so. It seems that we really will find out wtf was happening.
“In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said.
And then he appointed a special prosecutor to figure out exactly what happened and bring the criminals in the department to justice.
YES!
In case there is any confusion about what “justice” might mean in a case like this, they are looking at disbarment and prison time.
The word is that the Bush administration has salted the employment rolls of the current administration with hangovers who are ‘moles’, undercover operatives waiting to take orders from Bush, Cheney, Rove, and the Republican caucus and sabotage whatever the Obama adminstration tries to do.
What Cramer is saying is that the only consideration in determining the economic health of the nation as a whole should be stock market prices. This is an interesting perspective. Clearly a great many investors feel this way. That is why the administration has been putting so much effort into boosting investor confidence. The media, locked into worship of the market as a be-all and end-all, has responded by declaring that the depression is over and it’s back to normal for the country. It takes the pressure off announcements of continuing job losses, foreclosures, corporate corruption and looting, etc.
The administration “fixed” the stock market to get the media off their backs.
The stock market “creates wealth”? I thought that was the problem with investment in this country, money from nothing creating bubbles.
Bill Moyers did a show about the real problem, which is nowhere near being addressed: corporate fraud.
In perhaps the most incongruous quote of the year 2008, Governor Blagojevich told a reporter last month that he runs because “it keeps love in your heart.” The Chicago Tribune ran a song contest for its readers, and we now have 38 songs on the joint themes of “Blagojevich” and “It keeps love in your heart.” The winner will be announced soon. Click through the photos in the article to hear them all. Enjoy!
The health insurance industry has come out in favor of a mandate for the uninsured to buy insurance. They’re willing to work with the Obama administration on this, bringing their expertise into the negotiations. They’re even willing to extend coverage to everyone, even those with pre-existing conditions.
Let me guess. They’re going to accept people with pre-existing conditions, but they will find a way to deny these costs. Or the co-pay and deductible will still make it impossible for sick people to get health care whenever they need it.
Thr uninsured and the uninsurables will be required to buy at least the minimum policy being offered, and with the insurance companies writing the law, it will be neither cheap nor generous.
If the pool includes all the poor people currently uninsured, plus all those who are currently uninsurable, that’s a huge chunk of cash. Another way to say it is that this will be a huge chunk of wealth, and the insurance companies are salivating at the idea of getting Washington to redistribute that wealth directly from the lowest income people, with no influence in Washington, to them.
This will be a hefty tax on the uninsured and the uninsurables, the ones who can least afford it.
Why are they willing to enter negotiations? They’ve heard the phrase “single-payer”, and they’re scared to death. That’s literally scared to death, as it will mean the end of the money machine pumping our health care dollars into the black hole of American health insurance.
Seriously, whose side is Cheney on? Is he really so unaware that he is arguably the most hated man in America that his endorsement will only hurt McCain and the rest of the Republican ticket? Even Bush has decided to stay out of sight until after the election is over.
There are, of course, those who say that the Republicans are trying to lose so they can obstruct the Democrats for the next 4 years, then sweep back in on big victories in Congress and the White House. Something tells me that if they push enough Republican Senators over the edge, they may get far more results than they wanted out of the next few years.
You should be careful what you wish for. You may get it.
Kudos to Keith Olberman for digging up the facts. Who’d have thought that only a couple of months ago Palin herself was bragging about making Alaska a bastion of socialism, from sharing the wealth of big oil companies with the public, to taking pride in the fact that the state’s resources were owned by the public. She even used the word “Socialist”.
There’s just been so danged much un-Americanism goin’ on, it’s hard for a Republican to call them all out.
As you ought to be aware (if not, read my previous post and view those videos, which are only a small part of the amazin’ Michelle Bachmann archive), Michelle Bachmann put her foot in her mouth very deeply on Hardball last Friday, saying that Obama was a liberal and probably un-American, and that there ought to be a Media witchhunt to investigate members of Congress for un-Americanism. Given the opportunity to clarify, she just dug herself in up to her neck in her own muck.
She was therefore surprised and shocked to discover than her opponent, Elwyn Tinkenberg, managed to raise $800,000 nationwide, based solely on the weight of her comments. She has since come out with a rather subdued statement saying that she was misinterpreted and never said any of the things she outright said or tried to insinuate. Also, she’s now trying to imply that there’s something unpatriotic with people giving money to her opponent after hearing what a lunatic she is. Good luck with that, Michelle. Donate now. Her statements have tripled his campaign resources.
Her Republican primary opponent, Aubrey Immelman, is also now back in the race as a write-in.
Jon Stewart was doing a comedy show at Northeastern University and went through her comments. His response? “Fuck you!”
We also heard this weekend from John McCain’s brother Joe, who talked about “communist” Virginia, as opposed to the patriotic parts, of course. And McCain spokesman Nancy Pfotenhauer went on about how great it was to be in “real” Virginia, as opposed to Democratic-leaning parts.
So Jon Stewart had to update and expand his commentary.
And now, Republican Rep. Robin Hays had some nice words to say while serving as warmup for a Palin crowd. It sounded bad, so of course he denied what he said. Anybody ever hear of electronic recording devices? How about playback?
