Mitt needs to get out a bit more:
A study by America’s Health Insurance Plans revealed that approximately 12 percent of applicants are denied coverage because of preexisting medical conditions (Employer Health Benefits 2004 Annual Survey Kaiser—Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust). Each individual insurer sets the guidelines under which it will approve an applicant. However, if an individual does not qualify for coverage, in most states, he/she may be eligible for guaranteed coverage under HIPAA or state-run pools.
High risk pools. That’s the ticket. Or maybe not:
At the end of 2004, 32 states operated high risk pools, collectively providing coverage for 180,879 individuals….. These pools provide a safety net for some individuals with high health risks and can reduce reliance on Medicaid programs in these states.
Limited funding has meant that some states have caps or waiting lists to restrict eligibility and stay within budget. (Florida’s program, for instance, has been closed to new enrollees since 1991.) High-risk pools often apply waiting periods for those who qualify before benefits begin or for preexisting conditions. Premiums in high-risk pools tend to be high, and they often have considerable front-end deductibles. As a result, many eligible individuals find that they cannot afford the premiums, which can be as high as 150 percent of the average for comparable plans.
You’ll have to forgive Mitt, he’s been working awfully hard to end the inheritance tax so his five sons won’t pay any taxes on all those millions. So the SEIU is collecting the stories of real people struggling to provide themselves with healthcare and delivering them to him in person, hoping to penetrate that well-manicured bubble. If you’d like to tell Mitt your story and provide him with a reality check you can do so here.
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Woohoo!
Willful aristocracy lives.
Those insurance companies work really hard to find those pre-existing conditions, too. [/snark]
I chose not to sign up for coverage this year, because the choice was between two plans that both have been cited (multiple times) for cancelling coverage or for other serious problems.
Not universal health care coverage, but universal health care, please!
Poor Mitt. Must be nice to never have to worry that a devastating illness will completely bankrupt your family. Too bad the vast majority of Americans don’t have that luxury. A healthy population can only benefit the country in the long run…but universal health care is bad, bad, bad! /s
Breast Cancer comes from all the phtalates-colorants-dissolvents-chemical oils in make-up ,lipstick and deodorant: they go inside the skin and by gravity they und up in the breasts which have no exit , after 3 months they turn into toxic cells and tumors, that’s why men dont get breast cancer,they get “lowers” by accumulation from the top ,and the make-up Industry only very receantly took-off the phtalates from their products,and out of criminal guilt and to distract,they promote the CANCER WALKS,shame !
we need organic natural make-up/lipstick/deodorant/etc.,and we need total CHEMICAL AND GENETICAL LABELING ” IN ALL PRODUCTS,I HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR IT FOR YEARS,BUT D.C. IS SO CORRUPT….
What a wonderfully revealing statement by Mitt! I can not wait to present this to my favorite Mitt supporter at work. Ironically, my friend is a hospital supervisor, so he certainly can imagine a circumstance where an insurance company might do such a dastardly deed…
I guess that Muslim-Hatin’ Mitt never saw the movie “The Rainmaker” based on the Grisham book. Fiction? You decide. But perhaps more than a kernal of truth there.
Mitt is so out of touch… Ol’Huck is going to walk away with Iowa not because Romney is a pandering idiot (he is) but because folks are starting to realize that Romney is just Beloved Leader with a better understanding of the use of hair “products”.
Just stopping by to say hi, gang!
in MA, insurance co.s are not allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions (i think there may be a 2 month wait period for new enrollees?) – and this is the case for individual policies (no denial of coverage, no exclusions and no increased rates for pre-existing conditions).
maybe romney thinks the rest of the country is like ma? what an idiot…. there’s a reason i live in ma, when i lived in ca my oncologist told me that if i lost my employee insurance, i would not be able to purchase any insurance at any price because of having had cancer… that would mean not just no coverage for a cancer re-occurrance, that would have meant no coverage for being in a car wreck.
don’t know what the laws are like in ca now, but one of the reasons i still live in ma is the insurance regulations we have here – that i have not seen anywhere else i’ve lived.
Men do get breast cancer.
I don’t mean to defend chemicals, but you mean to say in exactly 3 months the chemicals turn cells into cancer?
You may be doing your cause more harm than good.
Sounds like Mitt’s going after the “23% crowd” with his version of Bush’s “No one could have anticipated . . .” refrain.
Mitt doesn’t have to take care of his breasts. This is why he knows nothing about them. See?
Hi Pach!
Mitt’s imagination is just a wee bit limited there. Here’s hoping dems run with it – this is that elitist, out of touch moment, like Bush the Elder not knowing about a supermarket scanner.
The thing that gets me is how insulting that is. Everyday people worry all the time about this. They gamble on it. Don’t just blithely say “oh, that can’t be.”
links to primary literature on this? thanks.
The view here is that the Republican presidential candidates don’t have a clue as to how most of the rest of us live. Mitt and George W. Bush have at least three things in common. Neither ever worked for a living. Both were born rich. And both are members of the awsome Compassionate Conservative Party. Gawd. Mitt, Rudy and Huckabee. What a line up.
I have been so fortunate, being dx in September with Stage0/1 breast cancer. I have Kaiser and they have been wonderful. The most awful part has been trying to get my mammograms and path reports to the doctors outside of Kaiser. Some of that must have to do with HIPPA.
Dianne
Besides, like Beloved Leader would say “Pre-existing conditions are for poor people”… and no one is “poor to me until they have cast their ballot, preferably for me”.
I’d like to see someone ask Mitt if he’s seen Sicko…maybe Moore should set up a screening for the candidates.
Damn. Someone should have done that at Kos, when we had them all there…maybe this summer, before the elections.
Men do indeed get breast cancer, and a dear friend and colleague of mine died from it. All too often, it gets missed until it’s too late, because of the impression it is a “women’s disease” — an impression held not only by the men who (may) have the disease, but by the medical folks who look after them.
These are absolutely disgusting statistics. Shame on the health insurance corporations. I know this blog entry is about Mitt, but there’s nothing really new here–he’s still a mindless empty suit doing whatever he thinks is necessary to win the Republican nomination.
- Tom
Statistically there aren’t enough women’s breasts in Willard’s family for him to have to think about breast cancer.
As for eliminating the inheritance tax, you didn’t think those five boys were out there for the good of the country did you?
I wish I could find the Boston Globe article on his wife Anne.
She said she had it tough when they were first married. She had to dip into her Trust Funds for living expenses.
Out of touch. Yes. Mitt is a polished deal maker posing as a politician…
Clueless
phtalates are nasty business, you can see the info here
Doesn’t his wife have Multiple Sclerosis? In which case they should know about getting health care.
What do Mittie’s sons do for a living?
Romney’s wife has MS?
Most likely you were dealing with plain old fashioned beurocracy. HIPPA has clear guidelines that allow any needed information to be transmitted even without permission if it is for treatment, payment, or operation of facility purposes. Kaiser however, is a huge hospital corporation, and HIPPA is an easy excuse to minimize stupid corporate snafu’s
i was not questioning that phtalates are “nasty business” – but the commenter made some very specific claims for which i’d like to see the primary literature (or at least a summary with links to the primary literature).
Mitt’s sons participate in the war effort. They protect our freedoms and keep our country safe by campaigning with Mitt full time!
How much of his “own” hard earned money has Romney loaned to his campaign?
I can pretty much guarentee that phtalates are bad is the only thing you will find literature on from the commenters post.
She must work for the New York Times.
I seem to recall the figure of $20M but that may be low.
Seconded.
Since the physicians don’t have any problem billing you very promptly, they should have a lot less of a problem transmitting your records very promptly. Check upon them frequently. If they aren’t sending things in a timely manner, they may very well also be sending the wrong records.
This is comforting. Mittie “served” almost three years in France as a missionary. Perhaps the GOP ticket in ‘08 will read Romney/Huckabee.
please excuse my early ot, but i must run…. i put this at the bottom of the last thread and will repeat here:
ot – another fisa bill has been submitted in the senate (this one by specter). the sjc will be considering it during their business meeting on thursday. see updated weekly hearings list. see also marcy and talkleft for more.
even further ot – the center for constitutional rights will be arguing before the supreme court tomorrow:
Mitt has donated 17.4 Million to his own campaign…
Would that be an interest-free loan?
Last report I saw mentioned 18 Million.
If you go to fivebrothers.mittromney. com you can read all the good work they are doing in the war, I mean, in their dad’s campaign.
That would be a never to be repaid loan.
Please forgive the o/t and probably everyone has seen it by now but, if not, Kos appears to be lobbing a medium-range missle over the bow of Time and joe klein wrt the FISA article. I’m having trouble with linkies but you know where to find him.
Does Romney still have connections to “Bain Capital”?
OT–
BREAKING!
I have been harrassing my poor congressman, Neil Abercrombie, about impeachment all year long– and not just me, but our Hawaii impeachment action coalition. He has steadfastly supported the Pelosi line. But today I received this from him, which his Hawaii COS gave me permission to share:
Don’t know if I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I’m hoping that we’re seeing the opening signs of a break in the logjam. Abercrombie is not one to get too far out in front of the leadership, so I’ll bet he is not the only one asking for Fitz to re-open his investigation!
Bob in HI
I am disappointed in my Speaker for the non-impeachment decision.
The KOS piece is not bad, but why settle for a summary of Glenn when you can read Glenn in his full glory?
The LA Times did a story about 2 weeks ago showing that the Giuliani, Thompson, and McCain would likely not be covered by their own healthcare plans, given their slavish devotion to the
free marketinsurance industry and the tendency to not cover pre-existing conditions.So Romney’s failure of imagination isn’t so surprising…
“Insurance” is a misnomer. How much profit has the insurance industry realized in the last seven years?
His Web site has a statement about this dated Nov 21. If it means much, you’d think we would’ve heard something about it by now. Hmmm….
If Romney or any other Republican is elected president, the GOP will take that as a mandate to do as they please. And things will be even worse than they are now.
Jane, shouldn’t your first word be “Out”?
I’m concerned that my new grandson, Daniel, is damned by the insurance companies before he is able to go home from the hospital. He’s got a heart defect, cleft palate, and profound deafness. Thank heavens, daughter-in-law’s policy has a $5 million cap and son’s has no cap. However, the two of them are essentially locked into their present jobs, darn near forever, because they have a child with severe problems. When he is too old to be on his parents’ policies, I hope we’ve finally achieved universal health care.
Its hard to fathom that the good people of Massachusetts elected this clueless Republican imbecile.
He was in his moderate Republican phase…
He hadn’t flipped quite as many flops then as he has now.
Here is something to think about. Canada has more freedom than the USA.
As a U.S. citizen who lived there (not a draft dodger, Navy vet) for 23 years and went through their health system with my wife who was suffering from Scleroderma, I can tell you their system is superior to ours. There was nobody to tell the doctors what they can do or not do because of coverage. I would also be thousands of dollars in debt, and I owe nothing. Coverage is for everybody regardless of wealth. I know the U.S. is “the greatest country in the world”, but there is no RIGHT to good health here. Until we have a similar single payer system like Ontario in Canada, we better tone down our boasting.
Buchanan ranting his racist pap to Weird Breather….what a scumbag. Not enough of the majority are replicating themselves.
The immigrant doctors now working in Fargo’s medical community are among our best assets. Especially the one who gives patients roses and chocolate truffles after the pain shots.
Too many people work where they work for health care benefits. And there’s not enough health care to go around.
First time I’ve been in the comments section over at his place…sounds like a pretty nice group of people.
You might write back and suggest we’d get more information if Waxman were given the WH documents.
Fitz almost certainly has heard everything Scottie will say in his book already. That was not enough to indict Dick, Bush, or Rove, in Fitz’ opinion. If Scottie were saying anything taht contradicted his testimony, I’m sure Fitz would already be talking to Scottie, but I would bet money he isn’t doing so. One thing ot consider is that Bush and Cheney and Libby kept their leaking (to Miller at least) secret among the three of them, so Scottie may have no clue what Bush did.
I’m sorry for you. I hope the little guy will be ok. My sister has a child who suffers from birth defects. He’s on Medicaid. My son was born in perfect health last year. I am a very fortunate man. I didn’t have any insurance to cover his birth expenses. I had to pay for everything. My wife had some complications. The birth-related medical bills were over $20,000.00. I had to pay all b/c I have some assets. My son has health insurance now.
I can’t believe he would make that statement out loud – of course he can’t wait to double the size of Gitmo, so I shouldn’d be too surprised.
My idea of health insurance is not riding a bike.
So far, so good.
I think you meant to reply to TexasEllen @ #51 instead of to me…
This man, and his followers, including Mittie, are maniacal.
AP – Defending his credibility, President Bush said Tuesday that Iran is dangerous and must be squeezed by international pressure despite a blockbuster intelligence finding that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago.
Blog.
BTW: Anybody know how many workers have been
“right-sized” by Bain over the years?
Let’s not forget Mitt’s Laura Welch problem while in France:
Be fair. The Bush puppet only saws what he is told to say.
his sons are serving their country in Iraq…by working on his presidential campaign! heh!
Willful aristocracy? Willful ignorance.
No health insurance? Let them eat cake.
Bush thingks that people want that stuff should have been smart enough to do what he did and be born wealthy.
In the interest of making an informed decision on who to cast my vote for in the next presidential election, I want to see a detailed essay on the Mittster’s business dealings.
I find it hard to listen to any of the junk anymore
it all sounds the same
the shows are all dumb
with the same agenda
“Be fair.” Lahoma’s always telling me to do that too. ;0)
Thanks Jane.
The other shoe is probably going to drop on insurance cancer coverage as science discovers more exact causes. Being a newly minted throat cancer survivor (that my insurance company covered with only the usual issues) I wonder how long this will last, now that Johns Hopkins has published clear evidence that non-smokers with HPV have a much greater chance to get throat cancer than people not infected with HPV. Will we start seeing HPV tests on cervical and throat cancer patients and a resultant denial of coverage for a “pre-existing condition”?
I mean, check it out:
Where does this BS stop?
Breast cancer? The Decider says, try the ER. Or what about 911?
People who have never been poor or had to struggle should not be allowed to run for public office.
Is that the level of rejections for-profit insurers aim for in order to optimize profitability?
I don’t know anything about HIPAA provisions, but TTBOMK, those state-run pools are always fully subscribed, and no one new gets in until a current subscriber leaves.
LS-
I continue my love-hate relationship with Arlen (I’m not from PA) continues, what with his push-pull ideas for his constituents.
I recently listened again to his opening statement, and his 2 examinations of AbuG at the latest SJC hearing. Brilliant lawyering, and he pounded Chimpy pretty good as well…
So he’s back to his old tricks. I think the sky will crack if he ever follows through with a threat…
Nice letter!
I’m surprised the comments here aren’t more clear on how this “pre-existing condition” stuff works. I’m not claiming to be knowledgable at all – this is just what I’ve picked up in years of dealing with multiple major medical issues with my family (all of which are extremely rare, not genetic in origin).
In a lot of states, but not all, there are SOME protections for pre-existing conditions. Those protections come with a lot of other conditions.
Very high rates of coverage are a given – you’ve already been denied health insurance, but the state is forcing someone to accept you – at a very, very expensive rate of coverage. Because you are in a “high risk” pool. For many people, this alone is prohibitive.
But it doesn’t stop there. There are 2 tiers of health coverage in the US. In the premium tier, you are covered, more or less. Some health insurers have better records than others. From there, you get to 80/20 coverage, often. That means that 80% of your bills are covered, and you owe the other 20%. Factor that over a major illness, and you are very often talking about total bankruptcy (if you could afford it, you wouldn’t have an 80/20 plan in the first place). Lose everything – instant poverty.
Aetna just lost a big lawsuit for denying someone cancer coverage (leiomyosarcoma). Like, over USD$100,000,000.00 big. Yeah, nine-figure big.
For a lot of people, this means you are bound to your job, or you can’t be an entrepeneur, business owner, or consultant without some major backing that gives you health coverage. I’m in that group. I consider myself lucky – but I’m all but an indentured servant due to the failure of the health care market in this country.
And I’m one of the lucky ones.
The fact is, providing health care to everyone is fundamentally incompatible with for-profit health insurance. They have a motive to fuck you on the deal and let you die. Period. Always. No matter what the regulations are, this is their motive and what they will try to do. So to condone this system is to say, at some level, poor people should just die because they can’t afford anything else. Try to remedy this with medicaid etc and you end up with thousands of perverse incentives and donut holes. Add this up, and you can see why, in polling, the middle class in America, which is shrinking but still substantial, favors universal health care.
Not “buy health care or we’ll fine you”. Just “pay your taxes, we’ll cover you, and beaurocrats will fight with scientists about what’s the most effective way to spend the money in a way that doesn’t give pound-of-flesh beancounters the upper hand”.
I don’t blame the candidates for being skittish about this, but it’s a major issue the US has to face in the next generation or so. Or else we lose status as an economic leader. It’s that simple.