Good morning Attaturk and thanks for the post.

There are some 1300 health insurance providers in this country. All taking bundles of cash as profit. Money paid in as health insurance dollars that does not pay for health care. And we wonder why health care is killing us.

Health CARE. NOT health insurance. NOW.

The relationship between the client and his health insurance company is also found in nature.

I got a flier from a clinic recently that said they even accept United Health policies. Stretching the outside law stuff, I guess.

Profiteering on the sick is now my way of describing ins. cos.

Congress and Obama say people don’t want to change their present healthcare, those with it, but of those with it, do they now trust it. Since 40% of overhead goes to pay people who dig up loopholes to prevent covering you when you really need it.

Also, what a nice dream single payer PORTABLE health care would be so in this day and age of migratory and non-work, one does not have to keep registering for health care at different providers depending on workplace and COBRA or whatever.

5% overhead only with Medicare. 95% of the money goes directly to health care. Not paying execs big salaries and advertising and getting out of covering people who have paid premiums for years and deserve coverage.

And then underinsured and non-insured.

I remember a card like that in monopoly. No joke that amount.

If Republicans have the nerve to utter this garbage then it’s obvious the public isn’t angry enough. The suggestion that there is any healthy relationship between the insurance companies and the people beholden to them should disqualify anyone from the right to ever speak again.

Mornin’, pups -

Hammer, meet nail: http://www.newsobserver.com/ne…..16313.html

Good morning, pups. It’s MoDo and The Moustache of Wisdom this morning. MoDo looked up from her contemplation of her navel and saw “Whirling Dervish Drivers.” She says Americans are so addicted to techno-surfing that they’ve gotten hubristic about how many machines they can juggle simultaneously. The Moustache of Wisdom is visiting Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan and tells us about “The Class Too Dumb to Quit.” He says let’s hope the officers who were too stubborn to give up and figured out an anti-insurgency strategy in Iraq can rebuild Afghanistan.

Here they are.

The coffee and tea are ready, the cold drinks are in the fridge for later, and I’ve got a variety of bagels with cream cheese. Don’t get me started on the health insurance industry. One of our docs does surgery to help alleviate sleep apnea for people who can’t use CPAP because of anatomic obstructions. He has actually had to write to insurance companies and put them on notice that they will be responsible for the carnage when the person whose surgery they have denied falls asleep at the wheel and kills someone. And the fights to get bone anchored hearing aids approved for people who can’t use conventional amplification because of prior ear surgery. And painstakingly explaining to some puffed-up clerk that the septoplasty that was denied is not a cosmetic procedure, but will allow someone to breathe through their nose… And the denial of an MRI because the patient recently had a CT scan. Then the fact that the CT scan won’t show you an acoustic tumor and an MRI will is something that has to be explained in words of one syllable. Mad? Me? What gave you that idea? Have a great day.

Good morning everyone.

Strong execution? That would sure maximize insurance company profits, assuming they could continue to collect premiums.

Hey, Ms. Wacc!

Sure hope he didn’t use stimulus money for that there car. Good point.

Remember the days when there were laws that even the governing class had to follow? Remember the days that there were laws that weren’t ignored? Sounds like they use Palin narcissistic non-rules there in NC.

Another sad story:
A young woman I work with found out last week that her 6month old baby has leukemia. We work for county govt. so our benefits are pretty good but her job is non-union so she’s not in the sick bank (or you can’t use sick bank for family leave, not sure which). Anyway, she was granted family sick leave (which just holds your job)since the baby may be hospitalized for 3 months. However, she used up all her sick days when she gave birth so she will not be getting paid. But the bigger problem, if she goes off the payroll, she loses her insurance. There’s a loophole, however. If she works 1 day per pay period she can officially stay on the payroll. So, this poor young mom, who’s been dealt a body blow, came into work yesterday. Every time I saw her she was teary-eyed. Now, she has 2 things to worry about, her little one and keeping insurance. Welcome to America.

Morning all.
As I read the article the car was seized in a drug bust.

I am so confused by lack of outrage for both torture issue and health care issue. Compatriots at work consider me totally overboard nowadays in terms of politics … more than mere politics this is. That is what the Right and dastardly corporate media is trying to reframe it as. It is about basic human rights and economic sociopathy (I just read that expression somewhere … so well said)! I sent out an animation on single payer with some angry statistics on lobby legalized bribing of Congress. People I thought were more activists than they apparently are so not engaged and detached. Some kind of cultural psychosis I read on a blog recently, too?

Yeah, but the maintainance on the fragile monster. (I was just referring to the last line of the article re stimulus moolah.)

I am so sorry.

A family member was told a procedure was totally covered (prostate cancer) and then got a bill for $14,000. He is currently unemployed. Bait and switched. He needs to keep up with health maintainance. Now sorry he did the right thing by his health, and can he continue to monitor himself and will he? This is what the rescission monstrous behavior is. Collect your premiums and then refuse to cover you. Even tell you after the event, sorry. Again, underinsured or bait and switched to non-insured.

I wish Obama had asked for people to come to DC and make their feelings known. I’d like nothing more than to have a million people descend on the capital. The blogs could pull it off if the big guns organized it. I’d go.

Did you have any damage from the hail storm?

If the conservative blogs could push for the tea parties, why can’t the liberal blogs call for a health-care march?
Attaturk, what do you think. Could FDL get together with some of the others and call for a march in DC?

We are in a health care “katrina” with bankruptcy and non-coverage. And the best case scenario will be not the real best case scenario of portable single payer but something Congress must hustle to find that will keep the lobby corporations happy while spinning the lie that they came up with change we can trust and believe in as reform, pragmatically speaking, cough cough choke. Boy and the anti-socialism button is still being used.

Last week democracrynow did a segment on medical insurance. Payouts from premiums are down to 80% from 95% awhile ago (1990?). Higher costs and profits, especially the latter. Refusing to pay claims is very profitable.

I received a notice last week that United Health paid my surgeon for an operation in 2007.

How can you trust the books of a company that manipulates it’s debits as it sees fit.

Sounds like a great plan.

Though prepare yourself, corporate media will ignore it or minimize it.

Lower than a duck’s in-step, these bottom feeders (to mix my disgust metaphors).

Tree damage, branches down, the whole nieghborhood is littered with leaves. Haven’t gone up to check the roof.

Clif on my blog reminded me of the following case last night. The right wingers would have been proud of CIGNA (Michele Bachmann would have been gleeful!) for saving a buck and making a profit on the back of a very sick girl…

http://guerillawomentn.blogspo…..kills.html

Now that’s the kind of health care the right wingers want! They’re happy with the status quo, so please…no one…interrupt our fabulous system!

There’s a totally fruitless talking point dual about medical care on WJ, and it’s warm enough to read outside, so I’m off.

Be well.

Hope your roof is OK, but sounds like it’s not as bad as it might have been.

Hey yourself, twin -

Ships passing and all that. *g*

Sounds like one of our garden-variety good ol’ boy Southern policemen. :-( [I live here!…gives me the right to say whatever I bloody well want about southern *virtues*.]

If it were confiscated from a drug bust, then they ought to be boasting about it…which means it probably was not. If it were bought with drug money, then the bucks could have been much better spent. What really ripped my very last last nerve was the side story about the relative poli’man who wrecked up another expensive cop car.

How do we compete with $90 million paid to the Dems and $65 to the Repubs last election? Legalized bribery. They took the bucks. They work for them. Technically they are supposed to be working for us.

Dodd, Lieberman — CT was the insurance state for years. Their codependency must be so tight.

McConnell maligning Canadian healthcare with false horror stories, when unemployment there so serious. How do these guys look at themselves in mirrors.

Hell must be building a whole new wing for Congresspeople and lobbyists.

Good gawd. What a story. Of course, the right wingers of America applaud the current system. THE REPUBLICAN’S PLAN: DUCT TAPE, PLASTIC, AND BOOTSTRAPS!

And yeah, I remember those days…….they were pretty much a lifetime ago. :-(

I’m not much of an organizer, unless it involves going to brunch.

Or mock it. That’s why it has to be huge. But if FDL, DKos, TPM etc all got together and pushed it, then it would be huge.

Have missed you. This is usually not my convenient time of day.

Had a buddy who lived in NC for a while. Whole different world there. She went from NYC to NC. Talk about your culture shock. But loved so much of it, though was not as outspoken on politics and religion with many town folk.

I think I would be sobered and alarmed having a corvette like that bearing down on me. ZO6 was it?

You underestimate your power.

You forgot EMERGENCY ROOMS.

And despite what I said about cultural psychosis this is an issue that right, left and center can get behind. I wrote a diary about Jesus Would Be An Advocate of Single Payer and got some response when I distributed it from people who are more traditionally religious than I. I was very impressed with their activism and anger.

The health care debate is really tedious and complex for alot of people; dualing plans and details. I think people are exhausted, weary. The last 8 years have been a shock to the conscience for people who care; the campaign was endless; people have real lives. The amount of information is overwhelming…..just to say. Let alone the outrage that some people seem to actually support torture…Maybe something will give us a fresh wind.

Best I can say is there are a lot of other states in the south in which it would be much worse to live. Lots depends on the particular area, ie. rural vs. urban and that sort of thing. Just because it’s urban doesn’t necessarily mean progressive tho’ b/c you can have a strong contingent of wealthy thugs. North Carolina cannot be beat for diversity of scenery, one of its greatest virtues.

LOL! Thanks!

Have you seen all the b.s. about what Obama needed was an enemy to push healthcare and DeMint, finally, gave him one? Excuuuse me?? Ins. companies were a natural target but Obama chose not to attack them in a way he could. All he had to do was talk about their rising profits, their using millions to fight reform, their ownership of our reps etc.

Good points. Yeah, makes my eyes glaze over. But when you look at the fixed game with those tremendous lobby contributions, hard to trust any plan. And will they even read the damn thing when it goes up for a vote. What will be stuck into it that will come back and bite us all.

Insurance companies are like Goldman Sachs … like toddlers and you can’t take away their sweet financial lollies!

This is OT but did anyone catch James Carville vs LizDick on Larry King? I thought James was going to have a heart attack and Liz sat there smirking. She is very much her father’s daughter.

Forgive me. Did not mean to generalize. And you are so right about the wealthy urban dwellers … who are edging out the lower classes in the cities, anyway. Hanging from our finger nails.

If anyone needs an Emergency Room visit, it’s Liz Cheney. She’s insane! [cue the hospital bed w/straps]

Larry asked about the birth certificate nonsense. Her reply (paraphrased but not by much). “Well, the problem is that Americans aren’t used to having a president who doesn’t defend America so that makes people leary”

I’m sure Michele Bachmann goes to bed each night saying, “We’re running out of rich wealthy powerful medical insurance companies!”.

The cronyism with his backers. And the scope of the lobbied bribing with both him and Congress just stuns.

I keep hoping that Obama will call up say Ralph Nader and John Edwards and ask them for advice. Yeah, I am a big dreamer. Attaturk can you arrange one of your brunches for them? Please, please?

Speaking of religion, there was a story in the last week or so about Jimmy Carter withdrawing from the Southern Baptist Convention due in large part to their philosophy on the second-class nature of women. I read snippets from the letter he wrote on several of the lefty blogs but just yesterday found the entire thing. Can’t find it right now to provide a linky but it was a thing of perfection in its entirety. Dog bless Carter….probably the only *real* Christian pol in my lifetime.

Sorry Liz, but we watched your father for 8 years running his Shadow Government, using his personal assassination squad against Americans, and torturing people in secret prisons around the world. Your pecksniffery is astounding some days!

One of the idiot Reps on the Newshour was saying the break in Congress is needed so the can read the bill that no one has read…why read when you know what you think?

Sorry I missed Carville

Wasn’t sniping at you, darlin’. Just providing my bonafeedies [sic] for any other southern pups.

Dog! You mean King actually had a show on something other than michael jackson? Hell has frozen!

I had heard something about that and was curious. Good for him. And he gets painted as the wimpy president (ex). His stand on Gaza. His non-stop volunteer work. I will google and read. Thanks.

Now let’s see. The fear of having the break is really that there will be time for fear-mongering and disinformation about the bill, is that the so-called progressives in Congress perspective? Though, Bev, I do hope they read the thing.

Absolutely understand, and I always think of myself as tactful and I can blurt out some real off-putting stuff at times. Sigh. :)

I think I caught that on the NewsHour. I wondered why they didn’t have a non-conservative speak from the House. I guess Dodd was the voice of the left for them? And when they start up on cost and deficit it makes me crazed with what the military budget is. And the corporatist conservatives have such gall talking about saving money for us all.

Work beckons. See all later.

bye! thanks for exchange.

A full-blown non-believer here so I don’t run litnus tests for Christianity , but Carter was the only prez since FDR who took his oath of office seriously.

It might be prudent at this juncture(heh)to protest the damned “news”organizations instead of/in addition to the empty suits in DC. This goes against the normal grain,but honestly,the only way people are ever going to be informed in numbers to effect real change is the education of The People. FOX doesn’t give a shit,and I know the other networks are owned by a handful of people,but I think a half a million people standing outside the headquarters of the major networks demanding the truth about healthcare could possibly make the news. Or not. It’s just not been done except by a handful of crazy ass teabaggers wanting Letterman fired. The “news”is part of the reason we’re in this mess,and there needs to be just as much effort directed square at media outlets as there is towards the Critters on The Hill.

I was reared Southern Baptist for 18 years…gives me way more insight on so-called Christian behavior than is good for a human being. :-(

CBS doing explanation of scenarios how plan will effect/work

The raw ingredients of yet another GOP sex scandal!