tagged w/ Private Insurance
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WHOO! The Democrats in Congress passed a bill! Healthcare for all! Awesome! Right? ...right?WHOO! The Democrats in Congress passed a bill! Healthcare for all! Awesome! Right?... more
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asherp
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2 years ago
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[Video at link (won't embed here at current)]
Anthem sues the state of Maine to hike up rates.
Private Insurance SUCKS.
Single Payer is the only solution that makes any %$^& sense.[Video at link (won't embed here at current)]
Anthem sues the state of Maine... more
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asherp
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2 years ago
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Netting $2.5 billion in profits last year wasn't enough for WellPoint, the nation's largest insurance company.
Now, WellPoint's affiliate, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, is suing the state of Maine for refusing to guarantee it a profit margin in the midst of a painful recession.
Forward this video to a friend in Maine! Or anywhere else!Netting $2.5 billion in profits last year wasn't enough for WellPoint, the... more
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asherp
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2 years ago
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Smart Bubble Society adapted John Green's original post as a Thought Bubble motion graphic to see how it would compliment his discussion on the health care debate. A week and a half after his post, we present you with John Green's Thought Bubble.
Smart Bubble Society is a non-profit motion graphic studio that promotes social justice, self-education and critical awareness through motion graphic shorts, otherwise known as 'Thought Bubbles.' What's in your thought bubble?
Follow us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/ThoughtBubbler
John Green's original post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z_RVl...
John Green's channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers
Music:
Again by Moby (www.mobygratis.com)Smart Bubble Society adapted John Green's original post as a Thought Bubble... more
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corbs
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2 years ago
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At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”
It’s a funny story — but it illustrates the extent to which health reform must climb a wall of misinformation. It’s not just that many Americans don’t understand what President Obama is proposing; many people don’t understand the way American health care works right now. They don’t understand, in particular, that getting the government involved in health care wouldn’t be a radical step: the government is already deeply involved, even in private insurance.
And that government involvement is the only reason our system works at all.
The key thing you need to know about health care is that it depends crucially on insurance. You don’t know when or whether you’ll need treatment — but if you do, treatment can be extremely expensive, well beyond what most people can pay out of pocket. Triple coronary bypasses, not routine doctor’s visits, are where the real money is, so insurance is essential.
Yet private markets for health insurance, left to their own devices, work very badly: insurers deny as many claims as possible, and they also try to avoid covering people who are likely to need care. Horror stories are legion: the insurance company that refused to pay for urgently needed cancer surgery because of questions about the patient’s acne treatment; the healthy young woman denied coverage because she briefly saw a psychologist after breaking up with her boyfriend.
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Most obviously, the government directly provides insurance via Medicare and other programs. Before Medicare was established, more than 40 percent of elderly Americans lacked any kind of health insurance. Today, Medicare — which is, by the way, one of those “single payer” systems conservatives love to demonize — covers everyone 65 and older. And surveys show that Medicare recipients are much more satisfied with their coverage than Americans with private insurance.At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to... more
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Forget the Blue Dogs, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday. The real "villains" in the fight for health care reform are insurance companies.
Work on the legislation resumed Thursday morning after more than a week of delays to accommodate conservative Blue Dog Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The Blue Dogs won significant concessions and also forced delay of a full House floor vote on the final bill until after Congress returns from its upcoming month-long recess.
But Pelosi on Thursday cast the blown deadline as a positive, arguing that the process is further along than it would have been with no date set. Meanwhile, her blistering attacks against health insurers offered a good preview of what to expect from Democrats trying to rally support for reform back at home.
"They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way," Pelosi said of the insurance industry after her weekly press conference. "It's almost immoral, what they are doing," she said, referring to industry lobbying against a public insurance plan option. "Of course, they've been immoral all along. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening, and the public has to know about it."
The current system works so well for insurers that they don't even want subsidies, Pelosi claimed. "They've had a good thing going for a long time at the expense of the American people and the health of our country," she said, adding that it will be tough to keep them from getting their way. "This is the fight of our lives."Forget the Blue Dogs, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday. The real... more
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A new analysis of campaign contributions to members of key congressional committees handling health reform legislation found that members of three committees who voted against reform have received significantly more in campaign contributions from the health and insurance industries than those who voted for reform. In addition, the legislation appears to have been slowed in two final committees whose members received much more from the health and insurance industries than their colleagues on the three committees that have passed legislation, the study reported.
"These numbers tell a story that Americans already know to be true: committee members who voted in the interests of the health and insurance industries have received more money, on average, than those who didn't," said David Donnelly, national campaigns director of Public Campaign Action Fund, the organization that conducted the study.
"The blocs of lawmakers on both the House Energy and Commerce and Senate Finance Committees who are slowing the pace and scope of reform are also huge recipients of health and insurance money."
The report, entitled "Five Committees, Three Votes: Advancing Health Care Reform Through the Swamp of $187 Million in Interested Political Money," reviewed the lifetime campaign contributions from health and insurance interests, as coded by the Center for Responsive Politics, to members of Congress currently serving on the following committees: House Ways and Means; House Education and Labor; House Energy and Commerce; Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP); and Senate Finance. Comprehensive health reform legislation has passed three of the committees - House Ways and Means; House Education and Labor; and Senate HELP.
The research found that members on three congressional committees who voted against health care reform received, on average, $353,105 more from the health and insurance industries, or 65% more, than their colleagues who voted for reform.
Other findings included:
*The seven Blue Dog House members who are negotiating with the Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman have received significantly more money from the industries than their Democratic colleagues on the committee.
*The 82 members of the two committees that have yet to vote on legislation -- the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee -- took nearly $100 million from health and insurance interests over their career.
"These findings point to the need for Congress to pass the Fair Elections Now Act, which would free elected officials from the pressures of fundraising," commented Donnelly.
The full report can be found here: http://www.campaignmoney.org/threevotes.
Public Campaign Action Fund is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to comprehensive campaign finance reform and to holding elected officials accountable for the favoritism they give to their big money contributors.A new analysis of campaign contributions to members of key congressional committees... more
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