IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

It seem pretty logical, I don't understand why you are so against the idea. You are talking about drastically cutting into the money people earn and you think they'll just accept it?

Reuters) - In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.

Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that.

So he hired an attorney -- not because he wanted to sue anyone; on the contrary, the shy African-American teenager expected his insurance was canceled by mistake and would be reinstated once he set the company straight.

But Fortis, now known as Assurant Health, ignored his attorney's letters, as they had earlier inquiries from a case worker at a local clinic who was helping him. So Mitchell sued.

In 2004, a jury in Florence County, South Carolina, ordered Assurant Health, part of Assurant Inc, to pay Mitchell $15 million for wrongly revoking his heath insurance policy. In September 2009, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the lower court's verdict, although the court reduced the amount to be paid him to $10 million.

By winning the verdict against Fortis, Mitchell not only obtained a measure of justice for himself; he also helped expose wrongdoing on the part of Fortis that could have repercussions for the entire health insurance industry.

Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell's case reveal that Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and interviews with state and federal investigators....

Fortis canceled Mitchell's health insurance based on a single erroneous note from a nurse in his medical records that indicated that he might have been diagnosed prior to his obtaining his insurance policy. When the company's investigators discovered the note, they ceased further review of Mitchell's records for evidence to the contrary, including the records containing the doctor's diagnosis.

Nettles also suggested that Fortis should have realized the date in the note was incorrect: "Not only did Fortis choose to rely on one false and unreliable snippet of information containing an erroneous date to the exclusion of other information which would have revealed that date to be erroneous, Fortis refused to conduct any further investigation even after it was on notice the evidence which aroused its suspicion to be false," the judge noted.

Fortis "gambled" with Mitchell's life, Nettles wrote.

Their motive, according to the judge, was obvious: "The court finds that Fortis wrongfully elevated its concerns for maximizing profits over the rights and interest of its customer." In upholding Nettles' verdict, the South Carolina Supreme Court similarly ruled that "Fortis was motivated to avoid the losses it would undoubtedly incur in supporting Mitchell's costly medical condition."

It could happen to you, if you get an expensive problem. Unless the current HC bill is passed, that is.

Cycloptichorn

CBO Score On Health Care Bill Released: Boosts Democrats' Hopes Of Passing Reform

Comprehensive health care reform will cost the federal government $940 billion over a ten-year period, but will increase revenue and cut other costs by a greater amount, leading to a reduction of $130 billion in the federal deficit over the same period, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, a Democratic source tells HuffPost. It will cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.

The source said it also extends Medicare's solvency by at least 9 years and reduces the rate of its growth by 1.4 percent, while closing the doughnut hole for seniors, meaning there will no longer be a gap in coverage of medication. The CBO also estimated it would extend coverage to 32 million additional people.

The CBO score is the last piece House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was waiting on before putting the puzzle together on the House floor. A contingent of Blue Dogs has been holding out support, insisting that the bill be fully paid for and not increase the deficit. The numbers give a major boost to Pelosi and her leadership team, which can now begin the whip count in earnest and can specifically point to the cost savings.

With the CBO score released, the Democratic whip team has a specific, thoroughly-analyzed bill to show to undeclared members who can no longer claim they are "waiting to see the language." Pelosi has very little room for error and needs to move nearly every undecided voter to a solid "yes."

Since the House last passed legislation in November, three Democrats who opposed it -- John Tanner and Bart Gordon of Tennessee and Brian Baird of Washington -- have since announced their retirements, relieving them of some political pressure to oppose the bill. Pelosi may end up drawing on those exiting members for a cushion of support.

The reconciliation package that the CBO analyzed makes slight changes to the underlying bill. Subsidies for the uninsured to purchase insurance are increased and more funding is dedicated to community health centers. The excise tax on insurance premiums is scaled back so that it hits few families. The bill also demands a higher commitment from drugmakers, aiming to close the so-called "doughnut hole" -- the time that seniors must pay full price for medication. The pharmaceutical lobby has signed off on the increased commitment and will be running ads in Democratic districts in support of reform.

The reconciliation package, because of budget rules that limit its policy scope, does not deal with two contentious social issues: abortion or immigration. Anti-choice Democrats are threatening to kill the entire project over the abortion language in the Senate bill and Congressional Hispanic Caucus members are rebelling because of its draconian immigration provisions. The Senate language bars federal funds from paying for abortion, but doesn't go far enough, according to some Democrats. Undocumented workers would be barred from purchasing insurance -- even with their own money -- from private companies which operate within exchanges set up by reform.
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The reconciliation package is headed for a Rules Committee vote on Thursday with a vote in the full House to follow. But before the House votes, it will require the commitment of 50-plus members of the Senate to agree to pass the identical bill. A Democratic Senator told HuffPost Tuesday night that Senate leadership had yet to begin whipping support for the bill because the language hadn't been finalized. Now it's been finalized.

The reform effort was jolted forward Wednesday morning, when Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who was a firm no as of last week, announced that he would back the bill.

"This is a defining moment for whether or not we'll have any opportunity to move off square one on the issue of health care. And so even though I don't like the bill, I've made a decision to support it in the hopes that we can move towards a more comprehensive approach once this legislation is done," he said. "If I can vote for this bill, there's not many people who shouldn't be able to support it."

Anti-choice Democrats have begun to back away from their certain opposition over the last several days. Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) has pledged to back the bill and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who opposes abortion rights, said on Tuesday evening that she is still considering voting for it. "That is one of the factors," she said of the Senate's abortion restrictions. "It is not the only factor."

It's not clear, though, what Kaptur's concern is. At one point Tuesday, she said that she didn't like the Senate language because it went too far beyond existing restrictions on federal funding of abortion. "The abortion issue is an issue for me in that I don't want to go beyond existing law," she said. "I view what was done in the Senate as going beyond existing law."

But at other times, she said that the Senate bill did not adequately ensure that federal money would not be spent on abortion and also cited federally-funded community health centers as a potential way such money could pay for abortions. HuffPost pointed out to her that such centers do not perform abortions. "Read the language," she insisted.

HuffPost asked Kaptur what the difference is between a federal subsidy of a private COBRA health care plan that covers abortion and a federal subsidy of a private plan under the proposed health care reform. In both cases, a consumer uses a mix of personal and federal money to purchase a private plan.

"Those are private choices [made by COBRA consumers] and the private plans that are out there, for instance federal health plans that we have: We've handled that separately. They can purchase it separately. They can purchase it separately. Keep the line as firm in the sand as you can and that makes me more comfortable," she said.

HuffPost noted that Kaptur had essentially just described the provisions of the Senate bill, which requires consumers to write separate, personal checks for abortion coverage. "I don't think what I've read in the Senate language is that," she said.

Kaptur, a social liberal, has a number of other concerns she said, including the absence of a public option. "When you take out the public option, when you take out the ability to negotiate prescription drugs, when you take out McCarran-Ferguson, when you take out the provision that I authored in the House in Title I to create regional, not-for-profit purchasing pools, where you can have hundreds of thousands of people aggregate and negotiate together on behalf of whatever their insurance plans are, you take the guts of that out."

But Big Pharma has built hundreds of ad campaigns around the message: Just ask your doctor . . .

The doctor is supposed to be queried about 'ailments' that Big Pharma either invented, renamed or amplified from things people lived with (restless leg syndrome) to things people needed a pill to solve.

Trouble is the cure is worse than most of the diseases.

Now, that is just one of the causes of increases in health care cause.

That there are 7 or is it 8 lobbyists for each member of Congress is another.

plainoldme wrote:

But Big Pharma has built hundreds of ad campaigns around the message: Just ask your doctor . . .

The doctor is supposed to be queried about 'ailments' that Big Pharma either invented, renamed or amplified from things people lived with (restless leg syndrome) to things people needed a pill to solve.

Trouble is the cure is worse than most of the diseases.

Now, that is just one of the causes of increases in health care cause.

That there are 7 or is it 8 lobbyists for each member of Congress is another.

Great point. I'd love to see drug advertising outlawed. Think about how much money and time is wasted on that ****!

Cycloptichorn

You might think you need all these scans, but it may end up all you get from them is a huge dose of radiation and a bigger bill.

I've noticed that a few times too. They just say to ask your doctor if XXX is right for you... but never tells you what symptoms it treats. I've often wondered if they were just stupid and forgot that part.

Cyclops; you do/did smoke weed and/or cigerettes, no? You realize what the drug companies have to say about those products right?

Hell, I think all those same symptoms could be applied to alcohol use (I think I've had most of those symptoms after a bad night or two).

I'm sure you know that the alcohol beverage industry isn't suffering from a lack of customers.

Oh, I don't know if I would go that far, re: symptoms. I've never experienced a lot of the worst symptoms that are described in these drug co. ads.

In particular they fight against legalizing marijuana, as it represents a form of self-medication that they cannot patent or control.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

In particular they fight against legalizing marijuana, as it represents a form of self-medication that they cannot patent or control.

Cycloptichorn

I'm not sure about that... Other than glaucoma, I don't think pot actually helps with anything for which there isn't already incredibly cheap drugs.

There are tons of cheap narcotics and benzos that would certainly work better in nearly all cases.