Remember Those Zits You Had When You Were 15? No Health Insurance for You!
By Susie Madrak Sunday Sep 20, 2009 7:00am
Obviously, it's useful and necessary to stop this practice. The Baucus bill isn't that tool because it simply displaces the "pre-existing condition" problem by allowing insurers to charge up to five times as much based on the applicant's age:
A proposal to make preexisting health conditions irrelevant in the sale of insurance policies could help not just the seriously ill but also people who might consider themselves healthy, documents released Friday by a California-based advocacy group illustrate.
Health insurers have issued guidelines saying they could deny coverage to people suffering from such conditions as acne, hemorrhoids and bunions.
One big insurer refused to issue individual policies to police officers and firefighters, along with people in other hazardous occupations.
Some treated pregnancy or the intention to adopt as a reason for rejection.
As Congress and President Obama work on legislation to overhaul the nation's health-care system, one of their main objectives is to stop insurers from denying coverage on the basis of health status. Proposed legislation would prohibit insurers from denying coverage to individuals with preexisting conditions or charging them higher premiums because of their medical history -- practices known as medical underwriting.
Even the insurance lobby has endorsed that goal as part of a larger reform package in which the government would extend coverage to the uninsured, greatly expanding the market for insurance.
Guidelines that insurance companies have written for professionals involved in selling policies offer a glimpse inside the underwriting process.
"What these documents show is the lengths to which insurance companies are willing to go to make a profit," said Jerry Flanagan, health-care policy director of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which distributed the documents Friday. "What it shows is that insurance companies want premiums without any risk."
Consumer Watchdog argues that consumers should be given the option of enrolling in a government-run health plan. It obtained the documents from a California insurance broker, Flanagan said.
A PacifiCare "Medical Underwriting Guidelines" document from 2003 lists under "Ineligible Occupations" such risk-takers as stunt people, test pilots and circus workers -- along with police officers, firefighters and migrant workers.
Uninsurable conditions included pregnancy, and being an "expectant father" was grounds for "automatic rejection." So was having received "therapy/counseling" within six months of the application. There was also this more general disqualifier: "currently experiencing/experienced within the last 12 months symptoms for which a physician has not been consulted."
The PacifiCare document "is completely outdated and predates the acquisition of PacifiCare by United Healthcare," Cheryl J. Randolph, a spokeswoman for the parent company, said by e-mail. She declined to provide current underwriting documents.
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YOU CANNOT TRUST AN INSURANCE COMPANY WITH YOUR LIFE!
Obama: Health insurance mandate no tax increase
The PrezNUT was just saying it's a mandate and people will face financial penalties for not having it.
How is this reform? Why the hell are we letting this guy get away with this?
As pointed out in this thread: http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/sunday...
It's Obama and NOT Bush. Don't you see how black and white it is Evet? If you point out stuff like this, posters get mad at you. That hasn't changed since his election and won't because, there is no alternative to a Dem Prez. There is no alternative to a Pelosi or Reid, other than rabid extreme rightwing Rethuglicans. So when Obama repeatedly shows his corporate colours, it's ignored, or shovelled off to the backroom. Seen any anti-war protests in the last 6 months? Heard of any in the media?
Here in Texas you are required to buy auto insurance or face heavy fines
And just recently there's been an announcement of 10% across the board premium increases.
The baucus bill is a disaster waiting to happen.
The whole freaking system is a disaster that's already happened and is continuing to happen.
I'm "staying" in Massachusetts right now with a friend.
I have been attending meetings with doctors and other medical professionals at Berkshire Medical Center for the past few months.
I am working with a local activist who has established a website on The Mass Plan with Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review (and others). Here's the link which completely explains The Mass Plan:
www.masshealthlawtruth.org
We now realize that 45,000 Americans are CURRENTLY dying every year because they have NO medical insurance.
The federal MANDATE currently being considered will FORCE everyone to buy health insurance or face a FINE/PENALTY.
It appears as though The Mass Plan is the general template for the federal plan.
Which means that once all the dust settles and the average Joe and Jane try to acquire insurance they will have to go to a "CONNECTOR/EXCHANGE" and declare their income. Based on that figure the "CONNECTOR/EXCHANGE" will TELL the individual "TAXPAYER" what amount they will have to pay and which policies they will have to choose from.
If the taxpayer cannot afford to pay the premium AND pay the rent/mortgage, utilities, car payments/REPAIRS, food, necessary home repairs, they may instead opt to JUST PAY THE PENALTY which will be far less expensive AND END UP LIVING WITHOUT COVERAGE ANYHOW!!!
If they end up in Medicaid there is always the federal mandate of "estate recovery" to deal with. This means if you happen to own your own home that you managed to pay for over the years, then lost your job and can't find another, or are too sick to work that the state will SEIZE YOUR HOUSE IN FIRST POSITION IF YOU EVER NEED ANY MEDICAL CARE/HOSPITALIZATIONS. YOU WON'T BE LEAVING THAT HOME TO JOHNNY OR MARY. But just TRY to get any Congressional Office to explain the whole "estate recovery as it relates to the Medicaid program". This will end up being just one of the big national "Surprise!!!!'s" in health reform.
So, if Baucus gets his way and Snowe and other Republicans go for a watered down Senate plan with no "Robust Public Option" (what ever the hell THAT is!!), and the Senate Democrats cave in order to achieve "bi-partisanship", the House will HAVE to dump "the Public Option" and we will end up with a draconian bill that will hurt more Americans in the end than help them.
I predict, based on all I've read, that more Americans will end up just paying the fine and going without coverage and as a result will end up dying anyhow.
Physicians for a National Health Program is right. Obama said, "I would go for Single Payer but we'd have to start from scratch."
So be it. We are at a point now where the bills being produced in the Senate and the House are so terminally poisoned that it would be better to "start from scratch"....and just go for Single Payer...Conyers 676.
At least Conyers 676 would significantly decrease the amount of unnecessary deaths every year we are now facing.
It is scandalous and dare I say CRIMINAL that this is being allowed to happen "in the richest country in the world with the BEST??? health care."
PFFFFFTTTT!!!!!!!
Or only the Texans who own and operate motorized vehicles? Or is there such a thing as a Texan who doesn't own a motorized vehicle? Can you be fined if you don't even have a license to drive but instead have an ID card?
It's for motorized vehicles
Otherwise there's a pooper scooper law.
So you don't have to have auto insurance unless you have an auto right? You can avoid paying either the premiums or fines by simply not owning private automobiles?
If owning an auto MANDATES the purchase of auto insurance, will the next insurance industry to step forward for government subsidies be life insurers? It appears the health insurance industry is very close to being placated so, where else can taxpayer dollars be funneled to help the rich? LIFE INSURANCE FOR ALL (and the insurer gets to name the beneficiary???)
Owning an automobile is optional and a privilege, not a right. Being alive is a condition, not a privilege. And it is currently considered somewhat illegal to opt out of living...it also invalidates the life insurance.
or next thing you know they'll pass a law that everybody has to own a car.
I might have borne for Obama when he declared in hsi Health care speech that there was a functioning analogy between mandating health insurance and mandatory auto insurance.
The major difference being that the "required" part of Auto insurance indemnifies you in the event you cause injury to anyone ELSE.
Either he's fucking stupid, or he thinks we are.
When are you gonna get tired of Obama pissing on yoour head and smilingly claiming it's Golden Rain?
So I can dump Aetna and send them a "good-bye and FUCK YOU!" letter?
Just prior to this, those assholes raised my premiums, again.
we are being "set up".
I really wish I could be more optimistic.
Because people who are facing massive increases or forced buying of HI, will be eligible for Medicare, even tho they are working.
Medicare is a complex beast, including coverage of people with no HI and also those who are on low income and cannot really afford the HI they are buying, Medicare reimburses payments in those cases.
Its going to be a real dogs dinner and cluster fcuk.
Maybe part of a cunning plan to reset the whole system, when the commercial HI collapses under its own greed, and also forces Medicare into a crisis.
just destroyed (stole) peoples life long investments and things. Many people have lost cash and equity that would have completely covered their health care without f_ing health insurance. Whens the "Great One" going to bring this out into the public discourse?
and start screaming . . you let these bastards STEAL my honestly earned life savings? And now your telling us "TO BAD your going to pay or be punished" and then you bail out these crooks?
Sheesh
...just stop paying their premiums. Cancel your insurance. It's not like it really insures anything but corporate profit margins anyway.
How is it stealing if you keep writing them checks? They only get the money you send them.
people who spent a lifetime working to save and set aside money with the faith Government was ultimately looking out for everyone of course that crashed along with everyone last fall. Yet, the Great One never comes out and even says at minimum . . we're sorry you lost all that, it ain't coming back so . . well .. that's life"
But! He goes golfing a few weeks ago with contributors some who are even in trouble legally.
Like Robert Wolf who's firm was caught up last year in a Senate probe of financial firms that attempted to shield millions of dollars in offshore accounts from U.S. taxes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGPCHT_NAus
I assumed you were on topic, and this proves what happens when you assume.
You mean all of the people who gambled their retirement on 401(k) plans in 'high risk/high yield' management instead of investing in local businesses that actually produce? Or those who bypassed even those limited protections from 401(k) and 125(b) plans and went strait for hedge funds and investment brokerages, real and virtual, as opposed to treasury bonds or good oldfashioned savings accounts?
Waaahh, I gambled my money and lost because the house changed the odds and the payouts!
on personal responsibility.
The odds and payouts were never disclosed honestly as the insiders always have more information than the masses who give them money for their company's growth.
A matter of principal, I'd rather get jacked by a inept government than by a some turbocharged, self serving corporate greed engine. At least the government is just stupid as opposed to malicious like these health insurance companies.
do that now. It's your choice. As of now, you are not required to fund your insurance company.
You may not "qualify" for The Public Option.
My understanding is that the sickest will be dumped there and you don't seem too sick to me....Ha!!
Besides, the odds are that this rotten legislation will pass with NO public option if Olympia Snowe has her way.
If she goes with the Baucus plan, all the Repubicans will cave like so many dominos falling over. Then the House will demurely drop The Public Option. "GOING ALONG TO GET ALONG!!!" IS PELOSI'S FAVORITE SONG!"
Prepare to be screwed. Again.
with all those deductibles and co-pays and restrictions and out of coverage area and general BS.
How long would it last before the Federal gov brought in regulations to stop the insurance restrictions of interstate trade.
stick a pin in the Health Care Industry bubble and start from scratch?
Stop buying the product.
I know - ad nauseum.
that eliminates the right wing media. And isn't Ugly a pre-existing condition for Ann Coulter?
And if she gets ill she would go to a top center, and all the staff and Doctors would be saying . . as you know this is someone very special, we really need to succeed here I want everyone to spare no effort in making sure she is comfortable and is provided with the highest possible standard of care. Our reputations are on the line and failure is not an option.
Mental retardation a pre-existing condition?
"The PacifiCare document "is completely outdated and predates the acquisition of PacifiCare by United Healthcare," Cheryl J. Randolph, a spokeswoman for the parent company, said by e-mail. She declined to provide current underwriting documents."
In other words she doesn't have any. Classic dodge. If WaPo has even a shred of journalistic integrity they would ride this story every day until she produces the documents. Don't hold your breath.
I thought that was amusing too. You know with United Healthcare doing the acquiring it probably got worse.
That's because the new policy is most like the same or worse then the old policy. I hate it when a company thinks were all stupid and hides behind such slim defences.
kind of have a secret desire that 3/4's of the planets stoopid would just die off so they can use the planet as their personal playground at this point.
I wouldn't say they're necessarily stupid, they just know things I don't.
Apparently the only thing I can do with a hammer is drop it on my foot and expand my vocabulary.
And I use a screwdriver to keep from falling off my bar stool.
(Maybe if they didn't charge a dime to get in I'd use the toilet.)
They just want us broke and desperate, willing to work for 20 cents an hour and a kick in the stomach.
Pregnant?
On one hand if we're all dead, they don't run the risk of creating another Maximilien Robespierre, V.I Lenin or Mao Tstung.
I have said all along.
Insurance companies will find a way to price you out of coverage if they don't view you as a steady stream of revenue with little risk of paying for your care.
It's up to us. STOP BUYING THE PRODUCT.
When you need the coverage, IT WON"T COVER YOUR CLAIM.
You would be better off going to the Grand Canyon and dumping a lifetime worth of premiums into the chasm.
At least you know the money is gone and have no expectation on return.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDA9NbPAK8o
The mandate is necessary if the insurance companies are to be forced to cover pre-existing conditions, which is one of the major problems with the status quo -- without a mandate, people would wait until faced with an illness to insure themselves. BUT a mandate means we MUST be given a controlled, affordable option NOT tied to insurance company profits. Otherwise it becomes just another theft from the middle class. At the same time, a public option without a mandate cannot generate enough money to sustain itself.
The three go hand-in-hand and one or the other in place without the rest means NO REFORM. Period.
No health insurance for you.
Pregnancy is a pre-existing condition, too.
Worse is the whole "expectant father" pre-existing condition. I mean seriously, wtf???
Will the thumpers use medical insurance to "cure" homosexuality?
Afterall it's a pre-existing condition too.
> The Baucus bill isn't that tool because it simply displaces the
> "pre-existing condition" problem by allowing insurers to charge up > to five times as much based on the applicant's age:
The more I hear about the Baucus bill, the more I think it is an abomination.
An earlier comment expressed the opinion that we progressives are being set up for sometyhing that we don't want. I agree with this person. As I have observed events the past 8 months, the Democrats, from Obama on down, have been too willing to crawl into bed with the Republicans, almost like they were enjoying a love feast in a political brothel.
Will the Democrats cave in yet again and give the Republicans -- and the wealthy in this land -- exactly what THEY want? If they do, then I will be in the market for a new political party.
No matter which one you decide to cooperate with, you still end up in jail.
and pay off their corpoRat masters by implementing an indirect tax: mandatory PRIVATE health insurance coverage.
I know it would be wrong, and illegal, and I'm sure I am a really bad person for even THINKING such thoughts, but I dream of seeing the CIGNA building (e.g.) engulfed in flames and hordes of health insurance consumers dancing gleefully around the pyre...
Nor are you alone in that. I would TiVo that event, and put it on my PSP so I can watch it anytime and anywhere.
That's totally incorrect. A more accurate title would be "There's No Health Care for You".
Most often you will get health insurance. You will pay your premiums or you and your boss will pay your premiums and the insurance company will gladly cash your checks. However, when you go to use your insurance to access actual health care for a real problem, perhaps life threatening, that's when your policy ends.
http://www.arcamax.com/zits
First a tax increase by any other name is still a tax increase. Second if forced to cover pre-existing conditions without raising the premiums for those people then they will charge everybody more to cover it. Forced insurance on a car is one thing. After all you can choose not to drive and some of us do anyway if you don't want to or can't afford insurance. None of us had the choice whether to be born or not. Forced health insurance is a burden that many people cannot bear. obama's government his getting to big. If you keep giving away your rights and freedoms to him you will find yourself at his mercy. The government has no place in individual lives. When the government controls all aspects of your life it is no longer a free country. If he wants to fix something why doesn't he fix the so called justice system that puts murderers and rapists back on the street. You give up your rights you give up your country.
If that is true, then why do we have the Right Wing wanting to repeal Roe v. Wade?
Telling a woman, no, you cannot have an abortion would be government intervention into an individual's life and that's exactly what a majority of Right Wingers want. However, they are same exact people who decry any sort of government intervention into their own lives. You can't have it both ways.
We have one of the best governments on Earth. We have protection from our military, we have the freedom to worship as we please and we have freedom of speech.
My husband has the pre-existing condition of Multiple Sclerosis. If he loses his job, we are at the mercy of private health insurance companies who would never cover him. His medication alone is $1700 per month.
The Mass plan isn't forced health care, it's forced insurance. And I don't think a fine is moral or is going to work. You will still have people too poor to pay for insurance when the fine is cheaper.
And already we have no choice in the matter, no rights either as we are at the collective mercy of for-profit health insurance carriers who, like our old disability benefits carrier CIGNA, like to deny claims.
A government sponsored Public Option (key word Option) would greatly benefit many citizens of our country--us included.
What happens to those who can't get coverage because they have a pre-existing condition? People who get their liscense taken away or have no car are not forced to get insurance or fined if they don't. If you have a pre-existing condition and can't get coverage you get fined. Just another thing for those of us who don't have our heads in the sand to scratch our heads in disbelief.
Remember those ear infections? No insurance. Seen it happen.
Go right ahead and call rescission despicable all you want. No one with any common decency or common sense will disagree with you. The whole social purpose of health insurance is to spread to a wide base the cost risks of individual illnesses.
Unfortunatley, when our side abandoned advocating for single payer, it abandoned arguing for the social purpose of anything in this matter, and instead chose to leave the currently insured to fend for their own interests in a social Darwinian struggle. And guess what? To the healthy, letting their insurance plan dump all of those pathetic loser sick people, serves their own interests as well as the plan's. With the public option in place, we will have an insurer of last resort, so it's not as if the pathetic loser sick people will actually lack coverage, it's just that their risk will be borne by some plan other than the private plan the virtuous healthy people belong to. And insofar as the reality actually does penetrate the complacency of the middle class that, yes, they too might one day lose the lottery and join the ranks of the pathetic loser sick, well, there is a pulbic option insurer of last resort to turn to if their plan rescinds their coverage.
To recap. By abandoning single payer, we have given private sector health insurance an actual purpose in people's minds beyond making profit for itself. By setting it in competition with a public option, we have made it the champion of keeping premiums down for the majority of Americans, middle class or better, who are currently insured. You tell me what the odds are that we'll be able to get any feature, such as a prohibition on rescission, into law that goes against the interests of the majority of the middle class, just because it helps the loser poor who don't have insurance right now. Not only are the currently insured the majority, they're the people who actually vote. Great work splitting off their interests from those of the uninsured. Just when you think that the Republicans are imploding, so, gee, maybe they won't be able to wedge our side into impotence, our side steps up manfully to the plate to wedge ourselves. New slogan of the Democratic Party -- Divide and Conquer, Ourselves! -- same as the old slogan.
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