Re: To you health ins. co. lovers

....and the Democrats are putting THAT into law.

"Connie" <tucson.connie@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uMXJm.9271$_b5.6940@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yeah, I know the drill. Repugnantcans want us to not get sick; but if we
do, to die quickly.


"sanboz" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:hd9bm2$d48$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That is part of the training, yes, except aim at nursing homes....

"Connie" <tucson.connie@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:kfJJm.4250$ky1.2383@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cheney'll have you shooting inconvenient friends in the face, and Palin
will let you murder wolves from helicopters.


"Connie" <tucson.connie@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:GKIJm.7654$W77.5672@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You should do fine. With your (non) spelling skills, that's about all
you're cut out for. That's the Cheney/Palin Death Panel that's forming
in secret, right?


"sanboz" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:hd7khr$toq$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
just think with the Gov in charge, it will be like Katrina, US Post
Office, Medicare, Medicaid, Va and countless other Gov run bloated
burackicies.
It will be like living in France (try it sometime)
I'm applying for a Death Pannel job asap.



"Connie" <tucson.connie@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dzGJm.11319$X01.7705@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
FOUL PLAY: Insurance Company Mistreatment
Top Ten Health Insurance Company Scandals
10. Giving bonuses to employees for canceling people's insurance
contracts after they get sick or pregnant
According to the Los Angeles Times, California's Health Net "avoided
paying $35.5 million
in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000
and 2006." This
dirty secret came out when a hairdresser fought back after Health Net
dropped her during
her chemotherapy. Now, California is investigating the state's top
health plans - and
finding that Health Net isn't the only one ripping up people's
policies. How many other
companies around the country are pulling the same trick?
9. Redlining pregnant women to avoid covering them
"Please keep up the good work with the marketing reps of not trying
to sign up pregnant
women." That thank you went out to company managers in a 2001 e-mail
from
Amerigroup's Illinois director of medical management. Five years
later, a federal jury
awarded $48 million in damages against the insurer and its parent
company for
discriminating against people with health conditions and pregnant
women enrolled in the
federal Medicaid program - discrimination that's still allowed in
many states' private health
insurance markets.
8. Sketchy stock-option deals and huge pay packages for executives
In 2006, UnitedHealth CEO William McGuire found himself in hot water
with the Security
and Exchange Commission over a stock options backdating scandal.
Facing legal troubles
- and questions from U.S. Senators - he forfeited $620 million in
stock option and
retirement compensation and resigned. But he still made away with
stock options valued
at $800 million and took home $530 million in compensation between
1991 and 2006.
But it's not just the giant corporation where execs rake in
exorbitant pay. In 2003, Blue
Cross and Blue Shield of Montana's CEO, Peter Babin, told the public
not to fuss over his
$1.4 million compensation package, including dog-sitting services,
first class travel for him
and his wife, and a $2,500 dining expense account (instead of country
club membership).
He called public questioning of his compensation "petty" - and later
resigned.
7. Defrauding our government and public health programs
News flash: Health insurers participating in public programs like
Medicare and Medicaid
don't always have the public interest in mind. A number have been
charged with raking in
public money for services they never delivered.
www.insurancecompanyrules.org 2
A New York investigation uncovered managed care companies charging
duplicate
premiums and billing for dead and nonexisting patients. In, Florida
state and federal
agents raided the offices of two HMOs to investigate whether they
were really spending as
much on mental health services as they reported. And, in 2005,
Americhoice of
Pennslyvania - now part of UnitedHealth Group - settled with the
state over charges it
had misled the state about claims, dragged its feet with payment to
providers, and denied
patients care they had a right to receive.
6. Using non-profit health care dollars to prop up for-profit
subsidiaries
Every year, health insurance companies squirrel away billions of
dollars in surplus. But
can all that money really be just a cushion? In 2008, Premera Blue
Cross, a Washingtonbased
nonprofit health insurance company, funneled surpluses to a failing
for-profit
subsidiary in Arizona - while hiking rates for Washington customers.
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Statements filed with the
Washington State Insurance
Commissioner's office indicate Premera transferred $49 million to the
struggling LifeWise
Health Plan of Arizona between 2004 and 2007. Although the transfers
aren't illegal,
they've raised concerns that the nonprofit company is raising rates
for Washington
residents to subsidize an out-of-state for-profit venture."
5. Blocking approval and payment for covered services
Woops! It would be hard for PacifiCare to argue that 133,000
mishandled claims were just
a mistake. For the violations, California regulators hit the company
with a record $3.5
million fine - a penalty that may ultimately reach $1.3 billion. The
laundry list of alleged
health insurance misdeeds: wrongfully denying covered claims, failing
to manage provider
networks, making incorrect payments, making multiple requests for
previously provided
documentation, and so on.
Here's some of the damage, courtesy of the Sacramento Bee:
? A surgeon blocked from scheduling surgeries for six months
? Over 200 patients of a single pediatrician being told he wasn't in
the insurer's network
anymore
? One father fighting for 11 months to get claims paid for his
autistic child, while his
wife put off EKG stress tests
4. Cutting payments to doctors, leaving patients to pay the
difference
If Aetna enrollees wondered why their bills from out-of-network
doctors were so high,
here's the answer: Aetna was underpaying providers and leaving
patients to fork over the
rest, according to New Jersey regulators, who in 2007 issued a fine
against them of
almost $9.5 million.
Aetna's not alone. Now, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is
investigating
Aetna, UnitedHealth, CIGNA, and other health insurers for what he
called "an industrywide
scheme perpetuated by some of the nation's largest health insurers to
deceive and
defraud consumers."
www.insurancecompanyrules.org 3
3. Siphoning health care dollars away to feed corporate parent
company
profits
Think of $36.8 million as pocket change? Rhode Island's United
Healthcare of New
England wanted to send this sum as an "extraordinary dividend" to its
Minnesota-based
parent company, United HealthCare Services - itself a subsidiary of
the giant
UnitedHealth Group (the center of a recent stock options scandal).
Less than a year
earlier, the insurer had shipped off $17 million to its parent
company.
The two dividends would have amounted to more than half of the
insurance company's
roughly $90 million surplus, prompting the state's Health Insurance
Commissioner to step
in. After a firestorm of public protest, United Healthcare withdrew
its proposal - but how
much money gets shifted to corporate parent profits under the radar?
2. Manipulating preexisting condition rules to deny claims and care
It's bad enough that insurance companies are allowed to block health
care for patients'
"preexisting conditions." Making matters worse is health insurance
companies'
manipulation of this loophole to deny claims they're supposed to be
covering under their
own agreements.
Just look at Assurant, ordered by the Connecticut Insurance
Department in 2007 to pay
restitution to patients whose claims were improperly squashed by the
company's
subsidiaries, based on supposed preexisting conditions. In the words
of the state Attorney
General: "Assurant calculatingly denies coverage for catastrophic
illnesses..Assurant
promised benefits, but abandons them when they face cancer and other
devastating
diseases."
And the denials weren't happening just in Connecticut. From the AG's
press release: "In
the case of Mitchell v. Fortis Insurance Company [an Assurant
subsidiary], a South
Carolina court found that Fortis pre-programmed its computer to
recognize billing codes
for expensive health conditions, triggering an automatic fraud
investigation. The court
awarded $15 million to the plaintiff, who was improperly denied
coverage by Fortis for his
AIDS treatment."
1. Using front organizations to sell shoddy, bare-bones products
When you're an independent businessperson, getting good health
insurance is especially
tough. An organization like the National Association for the
Self-Employed (NASE) should
help, right? It turns out that the NASE functions as a front for MEGA
Life and Health and
related companies - all the subject of a multi-state investigation
and now infamous around
the country for shady sales practices, leaky-bucket coverage, and
trails of unpaid bills
leaving financially strapped customers high and dry. MEGA has faced
fines from Delaware
to Washington state.
Think MEGA Life is an outlier in the industry? William Gedwed,
Chairman, President, and
CEO of MEGA parent company HealthMarkets, sits on the Board of
Directors of America's
Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry's lobby arm. He must be
watching out for the
public good.









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