More-
The practice is called "rescission" and Beaton's is not an isolated case. The House Energy and Commerce Committee found that the major private health insurers had rescinded the policies of approximately 20,000 people in a five year period, to avoid paying out approximately $300 million in benefit claims.
Appearing before the same committee, CEOs of the major health insurance companies stated that they would continue to use rescission, arguing that it is a necessary protection against fraud and abuse.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html
The practice is called "rescission" and Beaton's is not an isolated case. The House Energy and Commerce Committee found that the major private health insurers had rescinded the policies of approximately 20,000 people in a five year period, to avoid paying out approximately $300 million in benefit claims.
Appearing before the same committee, CEOs of the major health insurance companies stated that they would continue to use rescission, arguing that it is a necessary protection against fraud and abuse.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html
IndyColtsFan
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2007
- 33,655
- 688
- 126
Let me repeat:
Also, please post a link supporting your claim that the "sickengly huge profits" are because of denial of coverage. I am interested in reading about it.
You didn't provide a single quote answering my question.
Killing 100s of thousands and displacing millions for a trillion is something we could afford. Helping our own people get health treatment we can't.
Funny how screwed up our priorities are.
Yes we can.
I didnt state any priorities in my response. I gave a very unemotional response that we cant afford it in its current form. And our wars have little to do with this flawed bill bankrupting us. But nice try to deflect.
"Profits at 10 of the country?s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while consumers paid more for less coverage. One of the major reasons, according to a new study, is the growing lack of competition in the private health insurance industry that has led to near monopoly conditions in many markets."
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/05...-create-near-monopoly/
Take a look at a recent report "Insuring Health or Ensuring Profit?; A look at the Financial Gains of Washington's Health Insurers." According to the report, the big three carriers in Washington, Regence BlueShield, Premera Blue Cross and Group Health Cooperative saw profits increase from $11 million in 2002 to $243 million in 2003 and $431 million in 2006. Their cash surplus went from $833 million in 2002 to $2.2 billion (with a "B") in 2006. Interestingly enough they did it while covering less people. Over 2.37 million people were covered by the three in 2002 compared to 1.9 million in 2006.
http://vancouver.injuryboard.c...r.aspx?googleid=230780
There you go.
That is the first response you have had in a while that didnt include a crybaby appeal to emotional argument. Usually centered around unrelated policies.
/grats
Yeah wanting to help millions of americans instead of kill hundreds of thousands people make me a cry baby, and you a shill.
Notice how you ignored the actual info?
"Profits at 10 of the country?s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while consumers paid more for less coverage. One of the major reasons, according to a new study, is the growing lack of competition in the private health insurance industry that has led to near monopoly conditions in many markets."
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/05...-create-near-monopoly/
Take a look at a recent report "Insuring Health or Ensuring Profit?; A look at the Financial Gains of Washington's Health Insurers." According to the report, the big three carriers in Washington, Regence BlueShield, Premera Blue Cross and Group Health Cooperative saw profits increase from $11 million in 2002 to $243 million in 2003 and $431 million in 2006. Their cash surplus went from $833 million in 2002 to $2.2 billion (with a "B") in 2006. Interestingly enough they did it while covering less people. Over 2.37 million people were covered by the three in 2002 compared to 1.9 million in 2006.
http://vancouver.injuryboard.c...r.aspx?googleid=230780
Potter, who spent 15 years at CIGNA, said health plans have a financial incentive to cancel the policies of their most costly members and have implemented strategies to do so. ?They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy,? he testified. And canceling policies for even a small number of such members can have ?a big effect? on the bottom line, he added. ?Where is the logic and the humanity of having pre-existing conditions not covered in our society?? Potter asked. He noted that his testimony wasn?t aimed at CIGNA specifically, but rather at an industry that he said is ?taking this country in the wrong direction.?
http://www.aishealth.com/Bnow/hbd070909.html
""They confuse their customers and dump the sick ? all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," said Wendell Potter, who retired as CIGNA's vice president of corporate communications last year. He spent nearly 15 years at the company and four years at Humana."
"Potter, for instance, recalled a trip on a corporate jet from Philadelphia, where CIGNA is headquartered, to Connecticut, where the company's health insurance business is based in Bloomfield. During the flight, he was served lunch on gold-rimmed china with a gold-plated knife and fork.
"I realized for the first time that someone's insurance premiums were paying for me to travel in such luxury," he said on his blog."
"He condemned insurers' efforts to get rid of unprofitable customers, sell policies that can mislead consumers and offer very limited coverage, and pay out as small a portion of premiums as possible for claims in order to boost profits and please Wall Street."
"Potter described in written testimony how insurers use "purging" ? unrealistic rate increases ? to drive off less profitable employers. Citing a USA Today report, he recalled how CIGNA boosted rates in 2006 for the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust so much that for some family plans, premiums would have topped $44,000 a year."
"CIGNA, responding to Potter's testimony, said Wednesday, "Although we respect that there are different opinions on the solutions, we strongly disagree with the suggestion that, motivated by profits, the insurance industry has deliberately attempted to confuse or unfairly treat covered individuals.""
http://www.courant.com/busines...tjun25,0,4107201.story
What is your argument for keeping it in place instead of giving everyone coverage and using the sick profits to fund the people with problems?
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
- 26,907
- 174
- 106
Why do keep insisting their are only two options - (1) the current proposal (no matter how flawed) or (2) do nothing? I don't think even you actually believe that.
What we're burdened with is a lack of creativity and an unwillingness to consider alternatives. This, IMO, results from having the same old a-holes running the health care show in Washington DC for decades now. They show a surpisng lack of curiosity about alternative solutions and stubborness to have it any way but their own. H3ll, they shot down HillaryCare because it wsn't what they decided upon years earlier. They seem willing to go without reform unless it is what they've wanted. I see no improvement in their ideas over all this time; people claim this stuff has been studied and debated for decades, I say BS. I see nothing but stagnation; this is a problem that calls for term limits.
Fern
Budgeting is related. If we could afford one thing, we could afford the other thing. Especially if this one actually HELPS people. Duh.
Still waiting for a response-
"Profits at 10 of the country?s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while consumers paid more for less coverage. One of the major reasons, according to a new study, is the growing lack of competition in the private health insurance industry that has led to near monopoly conditions in many markets."
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/05...-create-near-monopoly/
Take a look at a recent report "Insuring Health or Ensuring Profit?; A look at the Financial Gains of Washington's Health Insurers." According to the report, the big three carriers in Washington, Regence BlueShield, Premera Blue Cross and Group Health Cooperative saw profits increase from $11 million in 2002 to $243 million in 2003 and $431 million in 2006. Their cash surplus went from $833 million in 2002 to $2.2 billion (with a "B") in 2006. Interestingly enough they did it while covering less people. Over 2.37 million people were covered by the three in 2002 compared to 1.9 million in 2006.
http://vancouver.injuryboard.c...r.aspx?googleid=230780
Potter, who spent 15 years at CIGNA, said health plans have a financial incentive to cancel the policies of their most costly members and have implemented strategies to do so. ?They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy,? he testified. And canceling policies for even a small number of such members can have ?a big effect? on the bottom line, he added. ?Where is the logic and the humanity of having pre-existing conditions not covered in our society?? Potter asked. He noted that his testimony wasn?t aimed at CIGNA specifically, but rather at an industry that he said is ?taking this country in the wrong direction.?
http://www.aishealth.com/Bnow/hbd070909.html
""They confuse their customers and dump the sick ? all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," said Wendell Potter, who retired as CIGNA's vice president of corporate communications last year. He spent nearly 15 years at the company and four years at Humana."
"Potter, for instance, recalled a trip on a corporate jet from Philadelphia, where CIGNA is headquartered, to Connecticut, where the company's health insurance business is based in Bloomfield. During the flight, he was served lunch on gold-rimmed china with a gold-plated knife and fork.
"I realized for the first time that someone's insurance premiums were paying for me to travel in such luxury," he said on his blog."
"He condemned insurers' efforts to get rid of unprofitable customers, sell policies that can mislead consumers and offer very limited coverage, and pay out as small a portion of premiums as possible for claims in order to boost profits and please Wall Street."
"Potter described in written testimony how insurers use "purging" ? unrealistic rate increases ? to drive off less profitable employers. Citing a USA Today report, he recalled how CIGNA boosted rates in 2006 for the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust so much that for some family plans, premiums would have topped $44,000 a year."
"CIGNA, responding to Potter's testimony, said Wednesday, "Although we respect that there are different opinions on the solutions, we strongly disagree with the suggestion that, motivated by profits, the insurance industry has deliberately attempted to confuse or unfairly treat covered individuals.""
http://www.courant.com/busines...tjun25,0,4107201.story
What is your argument for keeping it in place instead of giving everyone coverage and using the sick profits to fund the people with problems?
Corruption and politics requires speed to get any change. I want change rather than nothing. Small steps.
Your way works in an ideal world. Not one where 14 years of republican rule has left us with no change, soaring insurance profits, and more screwed people than ever.
Delay to win is your strategy/
theeedude
Lifer
- Feb 5, 2006
- 35,787
- 6,197
- 126
Where is Republican counter proposal? Even ignoring the fact that they had 14 years to propose it, and 6 years of control to pass it, where is it now?
We keep hearing how they want reforms, just not Democrat's reforms, but they haven't proposed anything or fought for any reforms.
We keep hearing how they want reforms, just not Democrat's reforms, but they haven't proposed anything or fought for any reforms.
Your argument is one a 3 year old would think up. It would be like me saying we need to increase spending on bridges because SS's budget is 600 billion a year. WTF does SS have to do with bridges? WTF does fighting a war have to do with Healthcare reform? The answer is nothing unless you want to appeal to emotion about unrelated items.
I am pretty sure anybody doing the legwork to put together this major reform isnt studying the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Still waiting for a response to the data.
And yes, budgeting is the "issue" for you. My argument is simple, yes, but completely logical. If we could pay for ineffective and bloated programs(military), than an important one that actually directly helps millions of our citizens should not be a problem.
What data? Those are articles about dropping people due to costing too much. How does that tie at all into this public plan not addressing rising costs? You wont see me deny private insurance can drop people. What I am laughing at with you is you think the profit motive is the true problem. With Obama's plan you will take away the profit motive and the costs will continue to rise. Earth to shadow, earth to shadow.
IndyColtsFan
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2007
- 33,655
- 688
- 126
IndyColtsFan
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2007
- 33,655
- 688
- 126
Covering less people != denial of coverage
EDIT: I see in a later message you addressed this, though you still do not provide proof that dropping people was "mainly" responsible for their huge profits. As a matter-of-fact, one of the quotes you posted said the insurers raised their rates and that was primarily responsible for the profit increase.
You still have not addressed the cost issue, however.
IndyColtsFan
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2007
- 33,655
- 688
- 126
Hah.. turning 11 million in profits into 243 million in 5 years is NOT rising costs.
Go back and read them this time.
The wars and military arguement you seem to be presenting is a year old. That's what Genx is getting at here. Our fiscal situation as a nation has changed dramatically since then. If you want to use that arguement now, you have to tell Obama that stuff like his troop surge in Afghanistan needs to take a backseat to healthcare reform.
You can't blame this stuff on Bush like it's 2007 or 2008 anymore and expect to get anywhere. The situation is what it is, and I think both you and I can agree that, at this point, it doesn't make any difference who's responsible for getting us here. What matters is who can get us out and how it can be done efficiently.
To that end, the only way we're going to be able to get there is to be aware of and discuss the actual proposals and sort through the FUD coming from both sides.
To divert back to my OP, does it seem like the bill is more or less taking the states' insurance commissioner's powers and re-allocating them to a federal commission? Or, is this reaching beyond that?
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
- 26,907
- 174
- 106
FFS try google.
Link to a 14-Page Outline of The Patients' Choice Act of 2009 (their proposed legislation released a couple of months ago taht will never see the light of day)
I haven't bothered reading it. It'll never get anywhere.
Otherwise if you've been following the news you'd be aware that in the Senate the Repubs in the committee actually do have input (unlike in the House). As to the specifics of what they (Repubs) are pushing no one knows other than them knows because the MSM isn't reporting on it. However, I suspect they are responsible for the on-again, off-again taxing of employer provide HI beyond a certain $ limit, for example.
Fern
243 million in a 2 trillion dollar market. Try again to tell us how that really affects costs? And you are dodging the issue on Obamas public plan being plagued with rising costs without the profit motive. Again, earth to shadow.
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