Tired of waiting for decent health care? Let's just TAKE IT...

The system was "BROKEN" when insurers began to hire doctors whose only job it was to end benefits, deny certain types of medical care and snipe at prices.

"Price Control" personnel for insurers make it their job to dishonestly allege that certain things are covered within another procedure. Their "pricing specialists" break down every procedure's costs in ridiculous ways.

While drawing blood may have been priced by physicians as a labor line item, insurers kick out claims that ask for reimbursement for specimen containers, labels, medical waste services and so on by saying those things are part of an "already-priced process".

Doctors had to hire help to figure new ways to "line-item bill" to cover their real costs. Having to have someone on payroll to figure how many times surgical bands can be used before having to be thrown away, is CRIMINAL IMHO. Docs had to go to wasteful "unit dose" individual supplies mostly for billing purposes.

Legislators who were heavily-lobbied by greedy insurers passed legislation that continued the madness. Texas Governor, Rick Perry, vetoed a doctors Prompt Pay bill after $50K was contributed by Aetna and $50K from Cigna.

The "Billing Game" caused doctors and hospitals to HAVE to name every single line item. It was the only way insurers and their paid "pricing specialists" couldn't tell them that items x, y and z were "included" in the price insurers "allowed" for a procedure.

I saw an insurer tell a contractor that plumbing vent pipe flashings were "included" in the "per square price" of a roof on a property claim. The statement was literally absurd. (How would any contractor know in advance how many vents were on a given section of roof with enough certainty to include them in the per square price?)

It was ridiculous since the project was a fire loss on a laundry complex serving multiple apartments. The laundry complex had 80 vents flashings in only 40 squares while the other buildings had 10 vent flashings in 50 squares. The flashings cost $12 each and added $24 per square without counting tax, delivery, sealant or the labor to shingle around each vent!

These games madden and frustrate sensible, honest people. Unfair cost-cutting measures are common in the greedy and solely profit-driven insurance industry.

Farmers Insurance claims management personnel actually told a contractor in Texas that vents were included in roof prices in Texas but were paid for separately "as needed" in Oklahoma.

They had no answer for how many vents were included in the price before their cost began to total more than the claim. "You know in business you sometimes have to take the good with the bad," he said.

Bush's laissez faire "affair" with the insurance industry's lobbyists, spokesmen, executives and campaign contributors has resulted in extremely lax regulation of the industry.

He made a legislative and regulatory push to reduce regulation and allow price increases and his untruthful selling point to Texans? "By relaxing regulation we will attract more insurers and more insurers means more competition for the consumers' dollar and that will lower the prices Texans have to pay for insurance."

Under Bush and to this day, Texas homeowners pay the highest homeowners rates in the nation (even while building costs are 30%-40% lower than in states like New York and California).

Insurers have more people paid to "cry wolf" than any other industry that comes to mind. The trouble is, regulators never REALLY investigate their "woe is me" claims and insurers are experts at using unverified "anecdotal stories" that disasters or torts are killing them while their profits have risen by 20%-80% per year for the last five years.

Insurers need to be cut out of the picture. We should have the government deal with hospitals and doctors and use group buying power to get good pricing and better benefits.

Ino, what do you think of the idea of taking matters into our own hands, rather than waiting for the government to fix this? I feel confident that we can use our buying power, even in smaller than national groups, to change tihs industry. It's a matter of supply and demand. What do you think? Click the link to read the article, and please tell me what you think.

I fully support and agree with that premise.

One thing you have to remember is that you have to "get up VERY early" to think of something an insurance company has not already planned for.

I liken trying to regulate insurers to pouring a glass of water on the kitchen counter and then trying to keep the water contained with just your hands.

In other words, they are EVERYWHERE and they have a contingency plan for everything far before working people have time to formulate theirs.

I see a three-pronged attack being necessary.

I know you want to bypass some of these but a few battles loom in each of these main areas.

1. Insurance regulation reform - today, there are insurance codes which help large insurers keep smaller investors out of their marketplace and don't think state insurance commissioners won't help those "friends". (In some states, Insurance Commissioners are elected and most owe their election to insurers who contributed heavily to their campaigns (many in hidden or soft money ways)..

2. Policyholder rights - today's Gonzales-Bush-appointed judges are in the appeals courts. The Alito and Roberts nominations were NEVER about Roe v. Wade. They were ALWAYS about being "Business-Friendly" (precedent is set at the appellate level and insurer-friendly decisions help stifle competition and also serve to defeat those suing insurers). Propping up business and helping shield corporations and insurers from litigation and class action initiatives are the new GOP "judicial activism". With Alito and Roberts in place, they have a majority where the last word is spoken.

3. Claims settlements and financing. Some bureaucracy is going to be needed to administer claims payments and to set reserves for those payments. Since many young people don't buy health insurance, many of our potential subscribers could be older and more susceptible to illness and therefore might be paying less in premiums than they were removing from the "co-op".

In the old days, insurers spread the risk. They sold policies at a projected profit wisely invested the difference. What caused their last "crisis" was the Dot.Com crash and poor underwriting criteria - not claims or premiums. They had gotten lazy and did not care if they were making good underwriting decisions when their investments were covering not only their losses but also making them huge profits.

The medical malpractice liability premium "crisis" was orchestrated by the insurance industry. Studies now show that malpractice jury awards didn't even keep pace with inflation. Instead, the problems were that insurers were losing money on investments and sloppy underwriting saw policies re-issued to docs who continued to make avoidable mistakes.

State insurance codes prohibit insurers from recouping investment losses by raising premiums so they had to use a public relations blitz to publicize "frivolous lawsuits". Only a few actually sneaked through the courts and many jury awards were never paid or were often vacated.

Insurers have now turned AWAY from "pooling risks" by adding ways to completely avoid risk altogether. Things like pre-existing conditions and credit scoring help them unfairly deny coverage and also charge more to people who may have no direct link to increased claims (like those who pay higher prices for a credit blemish).

Insurance is complicated and even Blue Cross and Blue Shield BEGAN as an association of doctors but eventually became, in my opinion, as bad as any of the rest.

All that said, your ideas have merit and this is as good a place as any to start to formulate some plans.

While AARP uses an insurer to mange and administer their plan, at this point, they seem to been treating customers right on certain claims.

Like BCBS or the one formed by military officers, USAA, AARP has a chance IMHO to become just as greedy and jaded as I think they all eventually get.

Well, you are certainly well informed on the subject. This is all really good info. Have you worked in the industry?

I've worked "around" the industry for years. I also have close ties to some consumer advocates that have worked in the industry.

I have seen what insurers have done to create a "profit center" within the claims department. Regulatory personnel should NEVER allow an insurer to do anything to profit from unfairly settling a claim.

When the "preferred vendor" programs offer those guarantees for the life of your vehicle, it speaks NOTHING about the quality of the repair.

Those "approved" vendors are merely there to establish a price for the insurer and he must agree to do the work for what the insurer figures. Most ARE allowed to re-open the claim if they find more extensive damage but let them find it too often or find too much of it and suddenly they'll be OFF that approved vendor list. They also have to "satisfy" the customer but who really has welds x-rayed or has an expert inspect any of the repairs we have done to vehicles?

Seldom do adjusters mention "DV" or "Diminished Value" (the loss you suffer to the auto's value whenever it has be wrecked and repaired). You certainly can't sell that car for as much as one that has never been wrecked. In some state the insurance lobby has made sure that DV is not covered in the policy.

Those approved vendor programs are solely price-fixing in nature.

The woman who helped found United Policyholders was a veteran adjuster for State Farm for 22 years until she quit and when on 60 Minutes and blew the whistle about what she'd seen.

She helped Californians get a settlement for poor quality after-market parts used by body shops at the behest of big insurance companies to repair cars.

She told me of being in a body shop once where a combination of frame damage and the poor quality of the after-market hood would not allow the hood to latch properly. The solution? Grind off part of the latch and hood assembly.

What is so sad is that upper management in these companies know this stuff is going on but they train young adjusters just well enough to get by and then try to convince them that they are the only things standing between that possibly fraudulent or greedy policyholder and the bankruptcy of the entire company.

The companies really no longer do not fear regulation or even fines in some states anymore. One large company does not even make middle management have to obtain a second signature on checks written for under $100K of PUNITIVE damages levied in court!

That tells you that settling claims unfairly is more common than you think. Management realizes that out of 500 claims, only 50 will even question the adjuster. Of the 50, perhaps only 20 or so will protest to that adjuster strongly. Out of that 20, only 10 will go over the adjuster's head. Out of that 10 maybe only 6 will complain a second time after being denied more money. Out of that 6, maybe only 3 will complain to a regulator and only one or two will consult an attorney.

They also realize that it will take a minimum of $30K to get even a small case to trial. With an auto or home claim, unless their is a fire that burns down a whole dwelling, would the money it would take to fight be worth it.

All this is already computed and has been rehearsed thousand's of time BEFORE you ever utter your first, "you'll be hearing from my attorney" (usually hollow and they know it) warning.

What many of them get away with, IMHO, is criminal. That is why I was so sad to see Edwards lack enough financial support to make a race of it. We may have a chance if Obama is elected and Edwards is appointed to some cabinet position or regulatory body. Maybe Attorney General and let him loose on the Corporate Fascists?

Some mythbusting to counter your mythbusting:

http://www.freemarketcure.com/singlepayermyths.php

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh,

Looks like maybe the Motion Picture Institute is an "Astroturf Advocacy" site for the Corporate Fascist in the AMA and the Insurance Industry.

And how DARE you post this garbage on a pod where the video's author's sister has since DIED due to the heartless profiteering of the insurance company she paid premiums to all those years! When an insurer is so bad at paying that the treatment facility won't even take it, then there is FAR too much wrong with your MANUFACTURED picture of America!

Could David Hogberg be, in fact, a lobbyist or at least a free-lance writer for the Insurance and/or Medical Industry like the one the Bush Administration paid to write glowing reports for their education "initiatives"?

I'm not through doing my due diligence about this phony-looking site but I suspect it could be like the phony Insurance Reform website, TCAIS used to sway public opinion just before Texas Insurers shoved a bunch of Insurance-Friendly Insurance "reform" down the throats of Texas consumers who now pay much higher prices for insurance of various types.

The website was sort of like the Swiftboat site but I don't think http://www.tcais.org is any longer an active website now that insurers gouged Texas consumers for the rate increases and policy changes they wanted!

They always name their Astroturf Advocacy groups something that sounds like it is fighting for the good of consumers - Ha Ha. TCAIS was Texas Coalition for Affordable Insurance Solutions yet their lobby victory made Texans pay MORE. Ha Ha

Jawnybnsc, your post was spoken like a true Insurance Industry spokesperson!

Docs were leaving Mississippi NOT because of lawsuits but because of ARTIFICIALLY jacked up premiums by malpractice liability carriers. They were losing money NOT because of lawsuits but because of re-insuring doctors who made mistakes over and over and who still kept their licenses and because the insurers were losing money on their investments during the first stock market slide after 2000 (the Dot Com crash).

Bill Frist was chased from the Senate for insider trading on his own profiteering Hospital mega corporation chain and docs were on board with tort reform so they could continue to make mistakes and be protected by insurers and the AMA.

In some Canadian cities you can actually see a specialist sooner than you can in the U.S. so quit believing and repeating all the lies put forth by the AMA, the Insurance Industry, the Giant Chain Hospital Industry and all their tens of thousands of lobbyists and scores of trade protective associations.

They are well-funded by mega corporations who have their paid spokespeople. Those funders have a vested interest in making obscene amounts of money and in denying coverage to people who need it.

It took the linked site over a month of pressure just to put the site's true owners where you could find them easily by just visiting the web page. They were first buried deep in a back page paragraph without a title that would lead you to even read the paragraph.

Among the owners were State Farm, Nationwide Insurance, USAA Insurance and an Insurance Industry trade Association.

They will stop at nothing to defeat single payer health care and affordable insurance.

So with a rhetorical wave of the hand I am dismissed. Notice that nowhere do the arguments presented at the website get addressed. Notice that grand theories about motivation and conspiracy are advanced without a shred of proof. Of course, none of this is complete without an appeal to emotion and charges of heartlessness in an effort to dehumanize and demonize. Funny, but isn't this what you guys on the left are always moaning about?

Nice try at analysis of the situation in Mississippi. So if this is the case, what happened to turn all that around? Did those insurance rates just "magically" go down as they "magically" went up? What has happened to the business climate and malpractice insurance rates in Mississippi since . . . oh . . . I don't know . . . passage of Mississippi HB 13 in 2004?

Finally, you again throw around reckless charges about who I am and what I believe. And for your final bit of song and dance, you muddy the waters further by attempting to create confusion about the backers of the website (I posted/you posted)? Nice . . . I'm sure that was unintentional, so I'll give you another chance to clear that up and to . . . well . . . maybe address some of the arguments presented in the website that I linked.

You know what Jawnybnsc? Honestly, I feel that if you are going to continue this debate on this thread, you should at least acknowledge the human element of this debate, and what you have just been told by INO. Someone has died and you skip right over that to peck out a self righteous response. This is not hypothetical. She had a name, and a family, and so do the countless others who fall victim to our flawed health care system. Please, spare us your petty arguments, especially when you fail to recognize the most important variable of all; human life.

Again . . . thanks for demonizing me. Would you please extend me the courtesy of assuming that perhaps I'm just catching up with everything that is going on in this "pod" (not even sure what that means yet) and that there is a human being at this keyboard . . . with a family, wife, mother, children . . . who is just as capable of compassion as any of you are?

Cancer is a tragic disease, and has taken more than a few members of my extended family. Fortunately for us in the United States, we have the best medical system in the world and the highest cancer survival rates just about anywhere . . . including in comparison to Canada and Europe.

I am truly sorry for your loss. From the looks of things, you were not treated with the measure of respect you truly deserved. Unfortunately, I can't go that next step with you. I refuse to demonize an entire industry, or hold your example as emblematic of the ills and shortcomings of an entire system that somehow still manages to provide the best healthcare in the world.

Nowhere have I argued that human beings (and especially bureaucracies) don't err and miscalculate. Clearly you believe that the conditions under the present system are horrible and unsustainable. Clearly you can see that someone might argue that a system run by a different set of bureaucrats in Washington DC, who while not motivated by such nasty vices as "profit", might yet still have some reason to ration/deny care in order to keep expenditures in line and who, by the way, might also have the added motivation of making numbers look a certain way just in time for the next election cycle. You can see why someone might have well founded and rational doubts about such a system, yet still remain human and capable of compassion for someone he doesn't even know and whose story he only read moments ago after reading what was posted to him?

By the way . . . here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Don't like the present system? Let Washington Bureaucrats take over, you say?

Get ready for patient stacking!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/new...

Your thin efforts to acknowledge a life are unimpressive. You are marginalizing the life and death of a young mother. This is someone who could have been helped. How many people have to die for you to acknowledge the fact that there is a problem? Does it need to be your sister/brother/wife/daughter/son/mother/father? I guarantee that if you had been paying health insurance premiums, and were denied care when you needed it most, you would be pretty outraged. This experience with the insurance companies is not a unique one. This is a problem, and it's not the kind of problem that has multiple solutions. Health care needs to be reformed...period. You call yourself compassionate and human, yet you speak of this woman only as a side note; a mere detail of the debate. Well, these are each important human lives that we are discussing. And these are people who paid good money to receive the great health care that you brag about...health care that's available only to the "haves". There are issues, and no matter how we decide to solve them, we must face them as a nation. We cannot sit idly by and allow our citizens to die, and/or go bankrupt with medical bills that they can't pay. If your daughter were to fall ill, would you expect her insurance to cover her treatments, particularly if her life were at stake? Please give a yes or no answer...this is NOT a rhetorical question.

Jawnybnsc, you never answered the question about whether you connected to the insurance industry or not. Is your career in film connected to this effort you keep using to promote the staus quo in Health Care?

Just a little research REVEALS that this "caring feeling" being expressed toward those of us who might like a single payer system comes from a well-orchestrated group of like-minded insurance people that supplies materials for agents to use to sway thinking toward the profit seekers in the insurance industry.

I found this in only 10 minutes of research. It sure looks like one of those Astroturf advocacy sites pretending to be looking out for consumers when it is seems to really be calling for perpetuating the status quo for insurers, doctors and hospital chains.

It seems as though the film's producer, Stuart Browning, is for sale to anyone who will pay him to make a "docu-drama" about any conservative or corporatist cause.

This similarly-named site is so close to how Texas insurers conned consumers there into thinking deregulation and continuation of insurer-lobbied legislation would create room for more competition for insurers and therefore result in lower consumer prices. It hasn't happened in Texas but Insurers used the phony website and TV and Radio spots to point out "flawed" insurance regulation in other states JUST EXACTLY like they are currently doing here on the linked web site in making fun of Minnesota.

In 2003, the whipping boys used by Texas Insurers were Maryland and New Jersey.

Notice how "Choice" is always a big buzz word in these dozens of insurer-funded Astroturf Advocacy Groups.

Lisa needed a "Choice" to pursue advanced health care but did insurers give her that choice? No, instead they balked, stalled and fought her hardest just when she was the sickest and least able to plead her own case!!!!!!

I have learned that if Astroturf Advocacy groups say they are protecting something, then that is the LAST thing they are really trying to protect. Think of it as the same way Republican legislation is announced - let's use the Patriot Act as a shining example that should have really been named the Domestic Illegal Surveillance and Wire-tapping Act.

I see your self-righteous protest and I don't believe you, Jawnybnsc!

I'm not AT ALL done with my investigation of the money behind your side's rhetoric.

Look at this similarly-named site giving "ammunition" to agents to use on consumers:

http://www.freemarkethealthcare.com/agents.htm

And its preceding page:

http://www.freemarkethealthcare.com/

I'm sorry you didn't find satisfaction in my post. I'm not sure what you're looking for. You seem to demand agreement and absent that you're going to continue demonizing me and accusing me of being insufficiently compassionate. This seems to be the modus openrendi of many on the left. You don't want to engage me in debate and unless I agree with your solutions, I'm a corporatist pig.

Nowhere did you see me defend what the insurance company did. In fact, I made it quite clear that I thought what they did was wrong. I didn't dodge or equivocate. I addressed your objection dead on, yet you persist.

The argument I'm making is that your solution does not solve the problem. In fact, in my opinion, your solution will only make the problems worse. I didn't say that the status quo was acceptable. What I am arguing is that the status quo is better than government managed heath care. What I am arguing is that there are BETTER solutions out there that would increase the accessibility and quality of care while reducing costs. These are not status quo solutions. I've provided a resource that makes an attempt at explaining "free market" solutions. They also take the time to explain that the current condition is NOT what they are advocating.

Apparently, you and others aren't even willing to entertain these ideas or have a debate about them. You'd rather impute motive, demonize, misdirect and spin. I am nobody's agent here my friends. I am a self employed business owner whose interest in politics, policy and economics is rational and earnest. Is anyone here interested in a rational or earnest debate, or would you rather continue to obfuscate?

I'm not sure I'm following the other arguments being made by Inofuilwell about similarly named sites, surreptitious funding, suspect language, etc. Apparently, anyone who uses the words choice or free market is in league with insurance companies and other assorted agents of the demon machine who want people to die. The paranoia and visceral hatred are astonishing. I actually recoil at the thought that this is the better America that you and your cohorts dream about.

When you're ready to stop tapdancing and make a charge that you can actually substantiate, I'll entertain that. Until then, I'll treat your baseless, tortuously reasoned arguments with the respect they deserve.

Inofuilwell,

I'd like to understand what it is that you think disqualifies advocates for freedom, choice and free market solutions from this debate. You're expending a lot of effort to connect the dots, yet your posts don't reveal a whole lot of there there. Is this the best you can come up with?

These people use codewords!

These people are . . . gasp . . . conservatives!

Is this the new respectful, inclusive tone that progressives are striving for? Is this the America that we're all going to be proud of? Are we on a quest for strings and puppet masters? What are you going to do when you find these people? Should I be afraid?

From your post:

***** "What I am arguing is that there are BETTER solutions out there that would increase the accessibility and quality of care while reducing costs. These are not status quo solutions. I've provided a resource that makes an attempt at explaining "free market" solutions. They also take the time to explain that the current condition is NOT what they are advocating." *****

The modus operandi of the neo-cons and the free-market libertarians is to pound away at people and to tell them that less regulation is the key.

On that concept, you are 100% wrong.

Here's an idea and it involves FREE ENTERPRISE.

You and those corporatist sites like to use the word CHOICE a lot.

So let's give the health care industry a "CHOICE".

We'll implement a single-payer system in the U.S. and then we will give them the CHOICE of developing a superior product to sell that competes with that single payer system.

What do you say to THAT CHOICE, jawnybnsc?

That choice of creating real competition like these sites and the companies behind these sites are "Astroturf Advocating" actually scares the daylights out of them!

What is wrong in today's market is an industry with the legislative influence, paid for regulators and lobbyists that spend 24/7 doing market research on what spins best to the public is far too powerful and wealthy. They have reached a point that is far more powerful than the power and influence of single voters are able to exercise.

It is laughable that you say you don't want the status quo yet where were you all these years that the status quo has been screwing American consumers?

You are using CLASSIC marketing techniques by first agreeing that there is a problem so that people will think you are on their side. However, your solutions always lean toward less regulation of the most powerful industries in the country and their tens of thousands of lobbyists.

There is a CONNECTION to the site you linked and a concerted effort by the insurance industry to avoid the change you say you want. The ONLY solution your side has EVER championed is that word "CHOICE" which is corporate speak for allowing consumers to choose options that cost less but with that CHOICE what you don't tell them is they are getting less and less coverage.

That was the CHOICE Texans were given. No longer were they able to buy all risk homeowners policies, They had new CHOICE policies where they were allowed to pick and choose coverages "Cafeteria Style".

Of course, this resulted in less educated consumers not covering themselves for risks that were included in older all risk policies. Sure, they paid less but the insurance companies paid out exponentially fewer claims dollars because coverage was less inclusive.

Only now after Insurers have screwed Americans for so long do they come forward by funding these right wing film-makers in some last ditch effort to stave off true justice for the American consumer.

Government is absolutely needed to protect the citizenry from the predatory practices of the insurance industry. Add to that, the pharmaceutical industry, the hospital chains, doctors and all their lobbyists and trade associations as well as other runaway giant multi-national corporations that have an unfair advantage over single voters through lobby influence and PAC's.

The site you linked is almost like a religious cult site in that it has all sorts of supplies to try to convince consumers that "all of a sudden" insurers are now concerned about the way the industry has been run,

Of course they are only afraid that their "Gravy Train" might be the subject of more needed regulation or be replaced altogether.

Nothing would suit me more than to see those black-heart deniers of so many claims lose their cut of the pie.

Now that there is a very real chance that single payer insurance may have a chance in America is the only reason they are paying guys like Stuart Browning to make his fascist films.

You sure are relentless my friend. You're going to keep pounding that same nail over and over again. You're going to keep slinging the same unfounded charges and you're going to continue to impute motives to me that are just plain unfounded and wrong. I congratulate you on your singlemindedness. You don't know me and you don't know Stuart Browning, but you know what you know . . . right? We're wrong . . . and you're right . . . and that's all there is to it. Unfortunately, this is just not the stuff of good debate and I've grown weary of your tactics. You'll forgive me if I just wait for someone to come along who actually has something meaningful to say.

i have been following the conversation- this i can add. my sister, before she passed, needed to fill a prescription for medicine. the amount she required was more than her doctor originally thought she would need so he called in for additional meds. the pharmacy called us back and said they couldn't FILL the script that day( when she was out of it ) but they could do it the next day- that was when her insurance would pay - they didn't deem it neccesary til then, no matter what her doc said... then when we needed a commode rail to help her use the toilet , well, they wouldn't pay for that either- not medically neccessary to use the bathroom...all this was a privilege she paid dearly for in premiums. i could go on about my own battles with the health care that i pay for but i am tired after losing my sister. we need single payer health care. and campaign finance reform and NO MORE LOBBYING.

Why do we need single-payer health care? I think we need Medical Savings Accounts and less government involvement in/regulation of health care.

If the insurance industry's products are so good, then why are ordinary Americans having this discussion and why are you so adamant about protecting the present flawed system. Medical savings accounts are only a small solution for a certain very specific group of people.

Why not let insurers REALLY compete with a single payer system without government help?

I have a simple question to you and the rest of the "free market" proponents. You and others like to use a manufactured fear of "Socialized Medicine" to make people think we'll be destroying some cornerstone of democracy if we go to a single payer system.

Instead of admitting those proponents and the industry are actually promoting obscene profiteering through powerful lobbying and PAC influence, why don't they try this approach:

Let us institute a single payer system and then they can develop a competing system. If they make it competitive and better then they will draw customers with real competition.That way, they'll have extra money to improve their product instead of having to use it to pay hundreds of millions to politicians, lobbyists and PAC's to help them create artificial legislative and regulatory advantages for their industry.

They should BE FORCED to try winning their business the old-fashioned way - by creating a better mousetrap without buying government favoritism at the expense of policyholders.

Why not debate that single concept played from a level playing field?

Again . . . you're addressing arguments that I have not made. You continue to distort my position and the position of those who favor a free market solution to this problem. You continue to raise the red herring of retail utility deregulation in Texas as a model for a form of deregulation which neither I, or anyone at the site I linked is arguing in favor of. In fact, it's the kind of apples to oranges . . . heck, you might as well compare apples to monkey wrenches . . . anyway, I know you think this is all so clever, but it's so transparent and disingenuous that only the most ideological and groupthinking hacks could possibly be taken by it.

More lies, eh?

You say I quoted ONE retail piece about deregulation AND you say you didn't argue against it. Both statements are out and out lies from you in a futile attempt to discredit the other examples I gave that included clean air efforts and insurance of all types.

THEN, I took the site you posted and showed how my statement you tried to refute of 8 years of Republican lobby and regulatory control was TRUE and not false as you actually stated.

The only year Dems outgained Repubs was in the ramp up to this campaign because big moneyed interedsts are WORRIED about deregulation and the chance that their gravy train may be affected.

Otherwise the FACTS say that 12 out of the last 14 years Republicans accounted for almost 2/3 of the lobby and PAC money given and Republican politicians were the overwhelming majority recipients of that money.

When you lie about facts and try to discredit my honesty, it just blows up in your face.

Get an honest job.

You should check your sources more closely.

I suppose you can supply quotes where I said ANYTHING either positive or negative about the particulars of Texas Retail Utility Market Deregulation.

I didn't try to refute anything. You made an attempt to associate ME, personally, with the last 8 years of "Republican control". I'm merely making the point that NONE OF THAT has anything to do with ME.

What I did attempt to demonstrate is that neither party is immune to the type of influence you decry. For you to argue otherwise is proof of either your ignorance or your disingenuousness. Your defense of the influence peddling (directed toward Democrats) that's going on now as a necessary evil is . . . well . . . naive, if not completely dishonest.

You seem to live in a very black and white world, my friend . . . which is interesting since I thought that one of the traits you leftists so admire is your self-described ability to perceive the "greyness" of things. You're don't pick up on nuance and you're not very discerning when it comes to reading people. You've not only misread me, you've misquoted me, argued against things that I've not argued for, introduced other assorted red herring into the debate and just generally botched the job of making anything like a coherent argument against any of the positions that I actually do support.

You, pal, are a master of Republican Free Market "White Noise". By restating my positions and and skewing the interpretation of even the websites YOU link, you are showing your dedication to the misinformation that flows from "Rightyland" on a daily basis.

Bottom line is you CHERRY-PICKED the lobby and PAC money website to try for a grandstand play that collapsed under the weight of its own statistics.

Just as I said, the corporatists in the Republican Party are hedging their bets because of America's discontent and a lame duck President.

The very site you chose REVEALS that Republican PAC's and influence groups gave more for YEARS than Democratic groups did and that was true right up until the last few months.

They have now begun to contribute to Democrats for a variety of reasons but among those reasons is their fear of the needed regulation they fear is coming, fear of Democrats in office and a very justifiable fear of the huge and gathering backlash from ordinary Americans at the polls.

So your pathetic attempt to make it seem as though Democrats were the biggest winners in lobby and PAC money actually withers when you look at what has been happening for six of the last seven election cycles (12 out of 14 years) and for the ENTIRE length of the Bush Administration's attack on needed regulation of powerful industries.

Your free market cures for what ails America have had 14 years to improve things but they haven't. We have only more powerful mega-corporations to show for Rightyland's control of Congress and the disastrous addition to the equation of the Bush administration.

Americans are experiencing the disintegration of the middle class through outsourcing, job loss and lax regulation that allows predatory corporate behavior.

Not only are ordinary citizens losing the power to influence legislation and regulation but they are giving up their basic rights and freedoms because of a "terrorist" threat that is less likely to kill them than bad Doctors and dishonest insurance companies.

All your Republican free market friends and you have done is to obscure record government growth and our nation's propensity to wage war behind the the FALSE label of "Conservatism" when in reality, this administration is the most fiscally LIBERAL train wreck in history.

It is also one that has deliberately DE-regulated industries that sorely need to be held at bay instead of being unleashed to destroy America's middle class.

You keep shifting your positions.

In the first place you jumped in on a pod started because a lady had just lost her life after an arduous and needlessly cruel fight with a heartless insurer that did what ALL health insurers do on a REGULAR basis. They wrongfully deny claims and at the same time wear down or increase the "hassle factor" people like Lisa must go through to pay those who provide care. They made it so bad that some health care facilities won't even accept the stingy and objection-ridden promise of insurance "coverage" payments from those insurers.

The VICTIMS of the system are being severely abused by those you are trying to defend by proxy. (You posted that "Astroturf Advocacy" website to scare people and were shameless in your attack of regulation and/or a single payer system that YOU equated with talk of "Socialized Medicine".)

Let the insurers make a better mousetrap and I'm sure people will buy it over a single payer system.

Sick people and twodee's sister, Lisa, should never have been forced to fight BOTH a deadly illness and, at the very time they are the weakest, greedy corporations that hire and train people to make payment for claims as slow and difficult as they can.

Your false statements about health care providers, single payer systems and my knowledge of the Insurance Industry and its modus operandi will not stand no matter how many posts you make trying to sell them.

First of all . . . I'm not a Republican anything.

Secondly . . . I can't believe you're going to continue with your silly justification for Democrats receiving huge amounts of PAC money. It stands to reason that the party in power is the party that receives the lion's share of the money intended to gain influence. You can try to spin this any way you want, but the bottom line is that money is being spent to influence policy and right now it's the Democrats who are in charge. Those are the hard cold facts. This bogus "hedging their bets" line just make NO SENSE at all. Of course they're hedging their bets. So what? Influence is influence.

My "free market cures" haven't had 14 years of anything. In fact, you make the counter argument yourself when you make the point that this administration has expanded the government in unprecedented fashion. You're exactly right and you've made my point.

Finally, you again try to cast my position as defending insurance companies in general and in the specific case you mentioned. You don't even seem to have a rudimentary knowledge of what free market proponents advocate. After all these posts and all this time, you still hold on to the same myths and misconceptions. You don't seem to want to expend any effort to understand the argument or give any credit to people who don't share your views and think that more than one solution should be considered.

You truly are a waste of time and energy.

As usual you're all puff and no substance. Show me where I said you were a Republican. I said you were a master of using their "White Noise" techniques and arguments.

You talk in vagaries when I ask you specific questions.

Did you just say the Democrats were in control?

Perhaps in the House the but the Executive Branch is Republican control The Senate is a tie and the Supreme Court is 5-4 corporatist.

You continue to use rhetoric without data and when you try to use data and it gets absolutely crushed, you resort to more faux disgust by throwing some tantrum and accusing me of distorting the facts.

Why didn't you address ALL the money your free market people have had for 12 of the last 14 years and then tell us why things are not working and why people want change?

Defending the indefensible is just your version of Don Quixote's futile efforts. I suppose Stuart Browning pays the part of Sancho Panza, right?

I have given concrete examples of every single one of your distortions and linked them yet all you have is rhetoric.

It seems you've dried up when it comes to actually documenting that the insurance companies are doing a good job.

Call when you have something documentable to say.

I'll be here laughing at your thinly veiled attempts at promoting corporate fascism as usual.