Re: [UC] Affordable Care Act issues

Sat, 09 Nov 2013 05:37:47 -0800


Rick,

 

At the time the democrats called healthcare activists, fucking retards, we were stressing that it is impossible to regulate corporations, like health insurance and drug pushing corporations!  A health care system is a public good, like a sewer system or public park!  And these corporations are no different than organized crime cartels. But we were left out of any substantive debate, derided in the media, and told by democrats to shut up, rally around and trust, the democrat's leadership.

 

The democrats partnered with these corporations, and gave us their Romney care plan.  Abuses were supposedly in the past, since the government would provide subsidies and guaranteed high profits. ( After the bank raids on the treasury, these corporations wanted windfalls too, and had bankrolled all the key democrats.)

 

 

Rick, Obama and the democrats partnered with these corporations, and we can't forget that now.  For years to come, unless we have true health reform, we will hear the same refrain, "how could we have known;" while the true corporate goals of Obamacare are unveiled. As all the protections people were promised, evaporate one after another.   

 

We don't want to watch the media hop around and point at Sarah Palin yet again.  Thos who believe health care is a human right, and universal care is a public good, were never interested in death panels, etc..  The democrats media focused on that manufactured idiocy and craziness to distract everyone from real policy debates. 

 

So in the words of Rahm Emanual, it looks like the democrats were the "fucking retards" all along!  Or did they know all along, since the true corporate goals were obvious to those who looked???? 

 

This report on Emanual's attack on behavioral health care is very timely. 

 

 

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19764-those-with-mental-health-challenges-fight-emanuels-cutting-of-their-support-network 

 

 

Behavioral health care, as well as safety net providers, were alternatively funded before the so called reform.  The plan is to slash these funding streams, because the poor will all have Obamacare, and that money will pay for Obamacare!  This is another future disaster!

 

Please understand, I would have liked to see parity for behavioral health care before it had been turned into an efficient system for pharmaceutical profits.  I advocated this for years!!!

 

But critical thinkers can probably see where this "parity" is leading.  Under private insurance, behavioral health care will be a method to dispense pharmaceuticals efficiently to the more well off.  And the millions of people needing behavioral health care will lose all access in the previously funded systems in order to pay for Obamacare.  (In private behavioral health care, the patient goes in to an empty room after a battery of standardized assessments, and receives drug prescriptions.)

 

I know you think I should be more "optimistic" about the obvious policy goals standing behind the lies.  But then should health reformers say, "I told you so," when people try to apologize for the democrats with another round of "how could we have known what insurance companies were really like."

 

 

One of the fucking retards,

Glenn 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Conrad
Sent: Nov 8, 2013 8:16 PM
To: "[email protected]"
Subject: [UC] Affordable Care Act issues

DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS:  http://freakoutnation.com/2013/11/08/denial-of-service-targets-obamacare-site-with-right-wing-message-displayed-destroy-obamacare/

Right wingers are trying to sabotage the already problematic Healthcare.gov site but this time in the form of a DDoS attack and leaving a message which could easily be credited to a Fox News viewer.

Security software provider Arbor Networks uncovered a new denial-of-service attack on the federal online healthcare exchange site.

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) is used to attack a single site, thusly causing a denial of service for users of the targeted website. The flood of incoming messages to the system essentially forces it to shut down, thereby denying entry to legitimate users.

The full message reads:

Destroy Obama Care.

This program continually displays alternate page of the ObamaCare website. It has no virus, trojans, worms, or cookies.

The purpose is to overload the ObamaCare website, to deny service to users and perhaps overload and crash the system.

You can open as many copies of the program as you want. Each copy opens multiple links to the site.

ObamaCare is an affront to the Constitutional rights of the people. We HAVE the right to CIVIL disobedience!




By now you’ve probably heard horror stories about how the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare, has forced so many people to lose their insurance policies. You’ve heard that affordable health insurance policies are being canceled and replaced with policies that are far more expensive than the canceled policies. But have you heard that across the country, insurance regulators are cracking down on the private insurance companies, because of the scam they are running on their customers? Probably not.

 Insurance companies, what’s going on?

What’s going on? Diane Barrette is a good example of what’s going on. Barrette, a 56 year old woman from Florida, who claimed on CBS News that her $54 health insurance policy was going to cost $591 a month because of Obamacare, was a victim of exactly the kind of scam that these state agencies are dealing with.

Barrette had received a letter from one of the private insurance companies, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, telling her that her old policy was canceled. The letter went on to say that the company would be replacing it with the new policy, and quoted a price that was ten times the cost of the old policy. CBS highlighted Barrette’s story as if she were the victim of Obamacare. She wasn’t. She was the victim of another private insurance industry scam. If CBS had been doing their job and acting as reporters and not right wing spokespeople, they would have known it, too.

 Here’s how this scam works.

How this scam works is that private insurance companies send out letters notifying existing customers that their current policy has been canceled, because of the ACA’s new requirements. They then offer customers a new, ACA compliant policy at far higher rates than what the customer would pay if he went through the ACA marketplace. In most cases the insurance companies do not tell their customers what other options are available or even let them know they have a choice under the new law. Some insurance companies have pressed their customers to sign up for the new policies by a certain date, saying if they don’t, their health coverage will be lost.

 Consumer Reports found her a policy for $165.00.

On the program, Barrette tells CBS that she has to hurry and make up her mind by November 1st or she will lose out on her chance to buy in. CBS offered her no explanation of her alternatives, but Consumer Reportsexamined Barrette’s story shortly after it aired. They easily found her a policy in the Marketplace for $165.00, not the $591 Blue Cross Blue Shield was shamelessly going to charge her.

What’s more, Consumer Reports also looked at her old policy, the one she was paying $54 a month for. They determined that it was “junk.” In essence, Barrette had been paying one of these corrupt private insurance companies  nearly $650 per year, to have almost no real medical coverage, under her previous Blue Cross Blue Shield policy.

 Insurance companies are exploiting the people who are looking to them for advice.

Talking Points Memo (TPM) recently published an in depth expose’ on how insurance companies like Blue Cross and Blue Shield are scamming people all across the country. While in most states it’s not criminal, it’s a scam nonetheless. By telling consumers that their policies have been canceled under the new law and offering them insurance plans that cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars more than what those consumers would pay in the marketplace, these insurance companies are exploiting the people who are looking to them for advice. High pressure tactics are used to get confused customers to sign up for these overpriced policies, including threatening letters and harassing phone calls.

 Humana was fined more than $65,000 in Kentucky for this scam.

In Kentucky, state insurance regulators went after Humana for the scheme. In that state, Humana was one of the worst of these private insurance companies, guilty of exploiting people’s fears over Obamacare. The company sent out thousands of letters to their Kentucky customers telling them their policies were canceled and that they had only a short window of time to buy into new (expensive) policies. The letter also told them that their premiums would go up once Obamacare went into effect. In all, 2,200 people fell for the scam, rushing to buy the marked up policies that the company was selling. The policies were sold at a much higher cost than what is offered in the ACA Marketplace. Humana was fined more than $65,000 for the scam. The 2,200 customers who signed up to buy the more expensive policies were released from their contract with the company.

 In Washington, state regulators issued a consumer alert about the scams.

In Washington, state regulators issued a consumer alert about the scams.Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler wrote:

Don’t just take what your insurance company says, make sure you shop around. You have the right to buy any plan inside the new exchange or in the outside market.

The scam is taking place all across the country, not just in some areas or some states. Consumer complaints have been lodged in Colorado, Missouri and Florida, just to name a few. Since health insurance companies like Humana and Blue Cross Blue Shield operate on a national basis, it is not surprising to see these kinds of letters being received all across the U.S.

 ”The reality is that this could do real harm.”

Laura Etherton, a health policy analyst at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, told TPM:

If you’re an insurance company, you’re trying to hang onto the consumers you have at the highest price you can get them.You can take advantage of the confusion about what people get to have now. It’s a new world. It’s disappointing that insurance companies are sending confusing letters to consumers to take advantage of that confusion. The reality is that this could do real harm.

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