This is the system the teabaggers are fighting to save:
The untimely disappearance of Sally Marrari’s medical coverage goes a long way toward explaining why insurance companies are cast as the villain in the health-care reform drama.
“They said I never mentioned I had a back problem,” said Marrari, 52, whose coverage with Blue Cross was abruptly canceled in 2006 after a thyroid disorder, fluid in the heart and lupus were diagnosed. That left the Los Angeles woman with $25,000 in medical bills and the stigma of the company’s claim that she had committed fraud by not listing on a health questionnaire “preexisting conditions” Marrari said she did not know she had.
By the time she filed a lawsuit in 2008, she also got a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and her debts had swelled beyond $200,000. She was able to see a specialist by trading office visits for work on the doctor’s 1969 Porsche at the garage she owns with her husband.
What a country!
arguingwithsignposts
love that free market!
asiangrrlMN
No snark here. I just have to say that I sincerely hope that every one of those insurance bastards get to experience what this woman has gone through. Yes, I know they never will, but I fear it’s the only way to get them to actually give a damn.
Oh, and I would like to respectfully submit that I no longer want my tax dollars going to the propping up of useless pieces of shit in Congress who think our healthcare system is just fine and dandy–so gimme back your health insurance, bitchez.
geg6
We suck. That is all.
arguingwithsignposts
OT, but a journo in Phoenix confronted that whack-job pastor who prayed for Obama’s death.
SGEW
[OT]
Your daily edition of “There Must Be Some Good News Today, Right?”:
Afghan Journalist Freed From Jail
Japan’s Next Premier Vows to Cut Emissions Sharply
vacuumslayer
That is heart-wrenching. This sort of thing should not happen in civilized society. Have people no compassion?
SGEW
[More OT]
Additionally, Nature sure is interesting:
Lost World of Fanged Frogs and Fiant Rats Discovered in Papua New Guinea
Indian Villagers Flee Elephants
Domestic politics suck. Elephants and Fanged Frogs are awesome. That is all.
Robertdsc-iphone
All the Blue Dogs & Repubs should burn in hell for their obstruction.
The Grand Panjandrum
Everything the teabaggers and Republican hierarchy says argues for ending Medicare. But they don’t tell us that. They scream, rant and rave about the threat to their “freedoms” and how we can’t afford to change an industry that is spinning out of control. Opponents don’t explain why Medicare is fine if you’re over 65 but a march toward soc1alism if you’re 40.
You should post this picture on every thread about health care.
PeakVT
It’s her fault for not landing a cushy wingnut welfare gig with health insurance benefits. (Seriously, do any of those jokers buy their insurance on the individual market? How about the 20-something twits at Reason?)
Morbo
@arguingwithsignposts: That man is scum. Check out Mike Signorile’s interview with him; he’s just a sorry, hateful fragment of a person.
salvage
Yeah but if she had universal health care she may have had to suffer a long wait to see a doctor and then of course communism so it’s all for the best.
JK
Grassley is on C-SPAN’S Washington Journal right now claiming that he’s working in good faith with Max Baucus. C-SPAN should have the video of this segment posted on their website later this afternoon.
Demo Woman
The Teabaggers are holding a demonstration outside of the city hall in Roswell, GA on Saturday. The city hall is normally locked on Saturday but the teabaggers want the city to open it so they can have access to the bathrooms.
So the teabaggers want lower taxes and bigger government? I’m confused. How much will it cost to hire a janitorial staff and security staff to open the building.
Violet
She’s a problem because she costs money. The insurance companies only want patients that are healthy or dead. No inbetween.
What’s so wrong about them wanting to maximize profits anyway? Don’t forget, the market is never wrong, so people like this woman probably don’t deserve to live anyway. The market decided.
Sigh.
Ash Can
It’s been said before, but I’ll go ahead and say it again. This is the very reason the RW leaders are fighting health care reform so hard. If the Democrats do away with atrocity like this, they’re national heroes. The RW/Republicans are dead set against allowing the Dems to have any victories at all, let alone one this big. I believe, and am afraid, that they’ll do anything — anything — to prevent health care reform from being enacted. I only hope Obama and his team realize this.
Pablo
Cases like this scream out for a huge Justice Dept. fraud investigation.
Augustine
@Violet:
If they can have death panels, can’t we have the death market?
Derelict
@Ash Can: I believe, and am afraid, that they’ll do anything—anything—to prevent health care reform from being enacted. I only hope Obama and his team realize this.
All indications are that they do not. They’re STILL talking about the need to bring Republicans on board. It’s apparently beyond their abilities to listen to the words coming out of the mouths of the Republican legislators and leadership. So, Obama and the Democrats continue to give up major chunks of meaningful reform and get nothing in return.
What I think we’re going to end up with is a system that mandates everyone buy insurance, but provides subsidies that are far too low to actually allow the uninsured to purchase policies. In effect, a system that will funnel trillions in tax dollars to the insurance companies while actually increasing the number of uninsured and raising costs for everyone else.
And for this, the Democrats will rightly be voted out in 2010 and 2012.
kevin
So, according to Rep. Kingston…the system worked for her, right? She got her coverage, and that’s all that matters. Ignore basically being bankrupt…the system worked!
Oh, that 10K subsidy will do so much to help people like her, glad the plan will force her to have health care!
beltane
@Derelict: Everyone might be insured under the plan, but very few will have access to health care. Under the Baucus plan, the insurance companies are entitled to 13% of your income, and you are required to pay for your your own health care with whatever money you are left with. It’s a win-win, see?
Zifnab
After the insurance company notified her of her pre-existing condition, I wonder how much of her premiums she was refunded. Do any of the insurance guys have any muscle cars that need fixing up? Maybe we can just sell the woman out as an indentured servant to cover her bills.
Capitalism! Not getting what you paid for since 1776.
Ash Can
@Derelict: I don’t agree that it’s all indications. The flip side of not seeing a coherent message from the Administration — which is understandable insofar as Obama having expressly put this phase of the reform effort in the hands of Congress — is that nothing, including the public option, has been ruled out by the Admin. It ain’t over till it’s over, and it’s over when Obama signs something. Even if Baucus and his motley crew send him a piece of shit to sign, he still has the option of saying, “Very funny, you guys. Now try again, and do it right this time.” Or even, “Well, if you morons can’t do any better than this for the American people, I guess it’s up to me.” I’m not about to declare health care reform dead while it’s still running around, albeit willy-nilly.
Doug
Best case scenario — and I’m not saying I anticipate it, but I can hope — is that Obama is being a Jedi. He continues the search for bipartisan support until most folks say he’s being a dope for keeping his hand outstretched this long. He allows Congress to fiddle with a bill until it becomes clear the body simply can’t get it done. . . then, he comes on strong with White House created legislation and rams it through with only Democratic votes (possibly with the addition of the ladies from Maine). This initial wheel-spinning consisting of Congress and the search for bipartisanship helps inoculate him against the usual criticisms of the Clinton health care plan that he tried to ram through a bill without consulting Congress.
DecidedFenceSitter
To quote a friend’s blog post…
DecidedFenceSitter
D’oh, I forgot about the blockposting woes….The only original text above is the “To quote a friend’s blog post…”
Derelict
@Ash Can:
I can only hope you’re right. Unfortunately, the evidence I’ve seen points to complete capitulation on the part of Obama and the Dems. Congress will create some kind of atrocity, and Obama will sign it just so he can avoid what looks like a political loss on his signature issue.
And when it becomes apparent that the bill is a complete piece of shit that leaves us worse off than before, the public will rightly blame Obama and the Dems.
Why our side can’t and won’t fight like the Republicans is beyond me. You can bet your health that if the GOP had filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and overwhleming majority in the House and a Republican president, we would have seen the Estate tax repealed by February 1. With not a single Democratic vote. And Boehner and McConnell would be all over the TV crowing about how they passed this landmark legislation without a single Democratic vote.
cleek
i’d bet that at least part of it is that the liberal mindset is not the same as the conservative mindset. if what we want government to do is different, why wouldn’t how we want to achieve that be different too ?
R. Porrofatto
The article John links to is worth reading in its entirety.Tidbits:
Anyone see a wee problem with the cost/benefit of this for insurers?
R. Porrofatto
Paragraphs 3 & 4 above are also from the article. (Wha hoppen to the preview button?)
Keith G
Would be nice if “O” led with that story tomorrow.
Actually it would be nice if he started by mentioning that there are a bunch of crazy sh*t heads who want to f*ck up America’s potential. But…….
Michael
Wait a minute – I’ve just thought of a great new derivative product for Wall Street to market – DeathShares.
The way it works is like this – health insurers can slice and dice their risk that they’ll actually have to pay out on insurance policies, and can sell those things around on the unregulated derivative market.
The commissions will be huge, and nothing can go wrong.
bayville
Well, she got work on the doctor’s classic Porsche didn’t she?
USA! USA! USA!
Augustine
@Michael:
Don’t forget Death Default Swaps, or Collaterized Death Obligations.
Michael
Oooh – here’s another idea, marketed from health care providers – MedicShares. In these, health provision facilities and doctors will be able to sell off medical debts – the amounts that health insurers deemed excessive above their reimbursement formulae, all bundled with the medical debts of the uninsured. They can be sold off in tranches based on age, and public pension funds, mutual funds and the like can snap ’em up for ridiculously high profits.
Lupin
From the Los Angeles Times, next month.
Doctor’s Porsche crashes into the Ocean. Forensic analysis reveals that the brake lines had been severed, the brake fluid replaced with pepsi-cola and vipers stuffed into the air conditioner.
Keith G
Diane Rehm show is on. They are focusing on HCR. Now the topic is cost and a public option. Again I am hearing that as originally envisioned, reform will cost too much.
Okay, I know it will cost a lot. But this is national security/public safety/commercial growth protection we are trying to fund. In the next 365 days (hell, in the next 1000 days) many, many more Americans will die from delayed med care, missed diagnosis, and, hospital infections and technical mistakes than will die from a terrorist attacks or war with China.
When is some one going to step up and tell the children that yes it will cost a lot, yes we will find ways to make it as efficient as possible, yes we will have to redirect money from other programs and change some taxes, and finally yes, this is what a technologically and spiritually advanced society does to help its citizen be safer and more secure. Its what we must do.
Erika Froh
What got me was the woman with the deviated septum. Basically she lost her insurance because her nose is crooked. “Health insurance lobbyist” is now equivalent to “tobacco lawyer” in my mind.
slag
Damaged goods. Toss her over the side. SPLASH. Sail on.
Oh wait…that would be uncivilized.
gypsy howell
Don’t forget Death Default Swaps, or Collaterized Death Obligations.
Wall Street is already planning that, except with life insurance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/06insurance.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1252422209-mJdVhBns1BWIMk/e+tAZdg
JHF
As a country, we have made choices. We apparently would rather let the rich and corporations go untaxed, fund purposeless wars all over the world, and use taxpayer money for obscene Wall Street bonuses than take care of our own people. There is PLENTY OF MONEY for single-payer universal health care. Tons, scads, oodles, bushels, truckloads of money. What we just poured into the corrupt financial system would have done it, and more.
Our Democratic party leaders have participated willingly in the looting of America. We’re just sick, stupid, and fucked.
Glidwrith
@Michael: Didn’t you hear from a previous thread? Goldmann Sucks actually is doing something like this: they’re thinking of taking life insurance policies, bundling and selling them. If someone dies earlier than expected, profits for everyone! (I hope I got the financialese translated right……..)
Leelee for Obama
@slag: Yeah, many of us are in “The Middle Passage” these days. I await my invitation to be tossed overboard anytime now. God, I hate these bastards.
Martin
Blue Cross of CA is one of the worst. My mom volunteers at her hospital to help patients with their insurance and she was stunned at how brazen and obstinant BC/CA was compared to other insurers. She spent months (literally) getting payment out of BC for a patient who had a major stroke. It took having to call in a favor from a friend and getting a call into a VP of the company.
End-of-life coverage can be the most profitable for the insurers to deny if they do it right. If an elderly patient dies, their kids usually don’t want to go into battle with the insurer, so if there’s an estate they tend to use that to pay off bills to make the whole problem go away (assuming the bills aren’t massive). It’s like the g-spot of health insurance profits.
teak111
Whether its a BJ in the WH or coverage for those without, the GOP is about knocking down the opposition, regardless of the cost. They know most Amer approve of some type of coverage, but they also know O is a popular president already.
Brachiator
Let’s see. When Republicans were defending the paying of bonuses to employees of failing financial institutions, they invoked the sacredness of contracts. And yet, when insurance companies unilaterally cancel the policies of their customers, who obviously had a contract with the insurance company, they are strangely silent. And no one in the media confronts the GOP on their inconsistency.
Well, said as a statement of principle. Maybe some of these types of changes will be necessary. Then the question becomes, how much are we collectively willing to pay for health care, and what existing programs are we willing to sacrifice?
chopper
@SGEW:
i’m more interested in the Fiant Rats.
slag
@Leelee for Obama: I know. My previous analogy for this whole situation was The Big Lebowski because of the oblique hilarity of it all. But now, I’m thinking a better analogy would be Lord of the Flies.
HyperIon
Regarding lupus : This was one of the conditions mentioned explicitly by T. R. Reid on Q&A on Sunday. In US poor (or uninsured) folks do not get the treatment they need and die at a much younger age than in other industrialized nations, where appropriate care is given.
I don’t see how anyone with a brain and heart could watch that Q&A interview and not be ashamed to be an Amercian. Reid’s basic argument is that you make the commitment to cover everyone first and then sort out the details…like every other industrialized nation did. But he notes that the debate is so dominated with the details that the basic morality of universal coverage gets lost.
This is to be contrasted with the Iraq war where the basic “moral imperative” (get that evil Saddam before he gets us…again) overwhelmed the demand for details. So heads you win, tails we lose.
Ash Can
@Brachiator: It’s more a matter of getting our priorities straight than one of “sacrifice.” I’ll happily “sacrifice” some corporate welfare to further the well-being of this nation’s citizenry.
Brachiator
@Ash Can:
The devil is in the details of what health care reform will cost. The original poster I cited, Keith G, noted that he was willing to see changes in taxes and other programs.
Some of this might mean considering cutting back or ending other government programs. The idea that health care reform can come about solely by cutting out “corporate welfare” is largely a fantasy.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I hope that our wise and far-seeing reps in Congress and the WH understand one thing – if they don’t stop this sort of thing with meaningful reform, there is an alternative way to get it stopped, which I very much hope doesn’t happen, but hope isn’t going to stop it. And that is when terminally ill people who’ve been massively screwed and have nothing left to lose start showing up at Healthcare Megacorp board meetings and corporate headquarters strapped to the gills with explosives as suicide bombers, and blow themselves and everybody else within range up. Call it the Baghdad option. I’m surprised we haven’t gotten there already, actually. Make people just a little bit more desperate, and make it clear than any possibility of fixing the system has been pissed away for good, and the bombings will come in due course – all you need is a large enough pool of people who truly have no hope and nothing to lose.
James F. Elliott
The devil is in the details of what health care reform will cost. The original poster I cited, Keith G, noted that he was willing to see changes in taxes and other programs.
As a middle-class taxpayer, I would be happy to pay more in taxes in order to help provide universal public health insurance. It currently costs me $800 a month to provide insurance for my wife and son (my employer pays my portion), which is great since I have a pre-existing congenital heart defect that prices me right out of privately-purchased insurance. That’s almost $10,000 a year out of our family income. You could raise our family taxes $5,000 a year and we’d break even and feel good that people like Mrs. Marrari don’t have to go through such a tragedy ever again.
And it would not cost $5,000 in increased taxes a year per family.
Brachiator
@James F. Elliott:
re: The devil is in the details of what health care reform will cost. The original poster I cited, Keith G, noted that he was willing to see changes in taxes and other programs.
I would also be willing to pay more in taxes for reasonable health care reform. But the question still remains what the total cost to business and government would be and what level of service will be provided.
And here, the record of other countries with universal health care is mixed, as costs rise higher than expected or predicted.
Wile E. Quixote
@Pablo
Seriously, why not find out the names of everyone at Blue Cross involved in this decision and put them online. We could have their names, pictures, phone numbers, license plates, addresses, etc. If the right can do it to doctors who offer abortion services why can’t we do it to people who work for health insurance companies? And as the Republicans and new Labour have been telling us for the last eight years if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear, so they should be totally OK with this. I mean it wouldn’t be anyone’s fault if someone who was pissed off about having their health insurance yanked then went out and gunned down a bunch of these people, would it?
Roger
We are talking about people’s LIVES here!
Not a commodity!
PROFIT should NOT be part of the system!
Period!!
Health care should be the same as police or fire protection. It should be available to all.
If your house is burning, you don’t want to have an idiot on the fire department’s phone telling you that your insurance is not paid, so the fire trucks will not be dispatched. You don’t want them to tell you your insurance doesn’t cover THAT kind of fire. – You don’t want some bureaucrat at the police department saying you don’t have burglar insurance, or rapist insurance…
Let’s end this stupidity of a system in which the PROFIT of health insurance companies is more important than our own lives!
I’m all for capitalism and making a profit, but that should be if you (or your company) have a new invention, or a better product to sell, or a store or service that has nothing to do with peoples’ lives!
KS
Look folks – sorry to spoil the whining party – but if govt had stayed out of much of our lives during the past 50 years – we wouldn’t be “broke” as a country and would not have become a nation of whiners wanting someone else to take care of our responsibilities.
I mean, the USSR turned out to be such a great experiment – it doesn’t exist any longer.
You can’t rely on other people to take care of your personal obligations. Government has just made it more difficult for us all to do that. Face it – anything run by the govt is not going to run. But then again – when someone else taking care of what is your issue – you have more time to for “E”, TMZ and American Idol. Snicker.
KS
NO NO NO to higher taxes.
YES YES YES to TORT reform, true insurance competiton (like we have for car, home, etc.).
YES YES YES to HSAs and MSAs that give tax incentives for folks to buy insurance.
YES to forcing more acceptance of pre-existing conditions – but YES to personal responsility to take care of one’s self and not eat, drink, smoke and be merry – and expect your neighbor to pay.
All those who want health care rationing (a la England and Canada) – please feel free to join in a public option and watch the rest of us that see Food, Shelter and Health Care, followed by Education and then Retirement as our responsibilities.
If I wasn’t working 1/2 of the $(%*^& year to pay for everything “government” (when you add up ALL TAXES) – I’d have more to take care of myself and my family.
And those are – FACTS.
Again – quit the whining and start working for both a living and for true, meaningfuly reform. If you want govt controlled everything – be my guest to move to North Korea.
Snicker.
Ash Can
@KS: Excuse us if we don’t stand up for readings from the Sacred Scripture of Libertarianism.
gwangung
No, they aren’t.
Quit whining.
KS
This is horrible.
But is an exception and not widespread. Good proof that well intended systems run by people are going to experience shortfalls.
Just like one run by a bunch of government bureaucrats that have bankrupt pretty much any major program they’ve run.
We have quite a different experience in our family, from my father’s (false) pancreatic cancer diagnosis (turned out to be an adenoma – but it had to be removed), which had he been in the Canadian or British system – he’d still be waiting (and at 73 years old – perhaps been told to forget about the surgery).
TURNS OUT – the test was a false positive – and at 74 years old, he is back out helping on the farm.
Or – my ruptured achilles from early 2009. I did it playing volleyball (to stay fit, snicker) with no warning it was coming.
3 days later – I had surgery and was on my way to recovery.
I had insurance – an HSA – that with a high deductible makes premiums affordable for self-insured folks like our family – which paid less than 10% for health care in 2008.
My wife broke a finger and went to see the hand specialist – who instead of rushing to surgery to repair a break and tendon tear – has put her on an 8 week program to see if the finger will mend on its own….
Funny – he didn’t rush into surgery to make money as “Mr. President” said of doctor’s with tonsilitis.
Problem with those entire debate is it is being run by TOO MANY PEOPLE with agendas – and not enough folks pure of intent.
But that is politics and money…..
From a staunch independent, and by the way, one of those TEA baggers you speak of that I bet for his income gives more to charity than most of the soap-“boxters” I am reading on this site….
k_michael
Doug (commenter # 24) mentioned that he hopes Obama is being “a Jedi”.
The way I’ve been putting it is, as the old saying goes, giving them enough hot water to cook themselves.
The more that this President bends over backwards to seek compromise, the more the GOP whines from one face that they’re “not being included”, while the other face contorts into an ugly mask proclaiming that no bill will be approved or, according to Chuck “snake-in-the-Grass”ley’s own words, even *read*. And the more the GOP alternately whines, and bares its teeth, the more its “base” openly threatens both killing those whom it deludedly perceives as “enemies”, and armed insurrection.
If Obama can continue reaching out, while the GOP, RNC, and their “base” become increasingly threatening, it’s quite possible that the majority of Americans will solve Obama’s problem *for* him, because increasing numbers of former moderates are reaching their limits of how much they will tolerate being told they are “not ‘real’ Americans”, told they are “enemies of America”, and threatened.
Wile E. Quixote
@KS
So, your father was 73 when he got this diagnosis. 73 years old, which would mean that he was on, wait for it, wait for it, Medicare, which means that his medical care paid for by the US taxpayer. If the government had stayed out of our lives for the last fifty years like you wanted your dear old dad would be taking a dirt nap.
Oh, and you said that your dear old dad was working on the farm. Yeah, it’s hard work cashing those subsidy checks from the USDA and benefitting from all of those nifty USDA subsidy programs that artificially raise the price of food so that lazy and corrupt farmers can profit at the expense of the taxpayer. You know KS, if I didn’t have to pay for your father’s medical care, and for all of the farm subsidies he’s receiving I’d have a lot more money to take care of myself and my family*. You’re a lazy, worthless welfare queen. You want everyone to pay taxes so that your father can have Medicare and can continue to collect those subsidy checks but of course you don’t want to pay any taxes yourself. Scumbag.
*OK, I’m single. But still, if I weren’t paying for worthless no-loads like KS and his father I’d have more money to blow on hookers and crack.
Majiqman
@KS
Oh, and quit it with the myths about NHS… you know if Stephen Hawking had of been born in the UK he would have been condemned to die, right?
*rolleye*
I also assume you travel everywhere by helicopter, pay a private security company for protection and have your own firetruck (filled at your own expense) and are fully trained in its use (or have sufficient liability insurance to cover damage from the spread of a fire that started on your property)… you mentioned a farm, but I don’t know if you live on it, if you don’t then I also hope you’ve dug your own sustainable latrine and utilize only tank water (or bore if accessible).
Must be great given all that is the case to be able to talk down at all those who rely on government services.
Nancy Irving
The people in the Post article are good examples of the kinds of people who stand to gain the most from health-insurance reform: the middle class.
The Republicans are trying (with considerable success) to put over the idea that reform means taxing “you” to pay for health care for the “undeserving poor.”
But poor people are already mostly covered, either by Medicaid or by other local government programs.
It’s the (formerly) middle-class person who’s lost a job and can’t find another with benefits, the person whose employer can no longer afford to cover its workers, the self-employed or small-businessperson who has paid premiums for years, but, like the people mentioned in the article, has their coverage dropped when they make a claim, because they didn’t mention a case of jock itch they had in 1962 on their application.
Ironically, the middle-class tea-partiers screaming “I won’t pay for your healthcare”–the ones not covered by Medicare, that is–are actually the precise demographic that has the most to gain from reform.
Calamity Jean
@Brachiator: “And here, the record of other countries with universal health care is mixed, as costs rise higher than expected or predicted.” The fact that countries with national health insurance have costs that are higher than expected isn’t much of an argument against national health insurance. These unexpectedly higher costs are still lower than what America spends on health care without covering the whole country.
JHobbins
As an avid tea-drinker, I am sad the teabaggers have co-opted tea.
As for our present health care system, I too would like to see the House and Senate health care benefits rescinded from each and every obstructionist legislator and all legislators who are against a public option. If the current system is so great, let them demonstrate it by doing without health insurance provided by our tax dollars. We could use the money saved to pay for the health care of people who get stuck with huge premiums and/or health care bills.
JHobbins
As an avid tea-drinker, I am sad the teabaggers have co-opted tea.
As for our present health care system, I too would like to see the House and Senate health care benefits rescinded from each and every obstructionist legislator and all legislators who are against a public option. If the current system is so great, let them demonstrate it by doing without health insurance provided by our tax dollars. We could use the money saved to pay for the health care of people who get stuck with huge premiums due to pre-existing conditions and/or huge health care bills.