Do you think the Blue Dogs give a rat’s ass about any of this? I don’t. Should they? Of course.

Thanks masaccio.

My sense is that Medicare does all the work and Humana and the others just skim revenue. Helluva business plan.

That headline could have been much shorter and still just as true: Humana Sucks.

What’s life and death to you and me is just numbers on a balance sheet to the for-profit insurers.

How much does Humana pay out in bribes, um, sorry, campaign contributions, and to whom?

So, abolishing for-profit insurance companies really is the only solution, isn’t it?

Humana is my supplemental along with Medicare. So far no problems. But which health “care” company doesn’t suck?

Good point. I wonder how many $saving blue dogs and Gopers thought about doing anything to plug the multi-billion dollar leak Bush created. Of course, like the Iraq war, he did it for a noble purpose, to bankrupt evil socialist Medicare by giving money to the
America’s Health Insurance Plans. Hooray for America.

Humana commits the perfect crime….it’s all legal.

looks like a paltry $950,000 this cycle

will have to do a little more digging to find the beneficiaries of their largesse – probably everything to do with States where they have the monopoly

My all time favorite is Rick Scott who heads up Conservatives for Patient Rights. Scott left the for profit hospital chain Columbia HCA after ripping the Govt off for billions. Not in disgrace of course. Ripping off Medicare is a noble cause to these parasites.

From wikipedia:
“In 2001, HCA reached a plea agreement with the U.S. government that avoided criminal charges against the company and included $95 million in fines. [3] In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the U.S. government $631 million, plus interest, and pay $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims.[12] In all, civil law suits cost HCA more than $1.7 billion to settle, including more than $500 million paid in 2003 to two whistleblowers.[3]” This is a settlement reached under George Bush.

Let me ask you the same question…Do you really think that Bluedogs give a rat’s ass for anyone other than themselves?

These guys/gals are politicians! Look at the GOPPERs and DEMs who have disgraced themselves taking money, having sex, just out and out stealing, using their offices for personal issues… even your own favorite local saint probably couldn’t stand an honest audit or a recording of his/her confessions. It takes millions to get elected and the job pays less than what a dentist gets.

“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

here are the recipients

Bush and his cronies, including the repugs most opposed to reform, knew the Medicare Modernization Act vastly overpaid Medicare Advantage plans. They knew and they did it anyway. It was a toofer. It would help destroy Medicare by bankrupting that socialist monstrosity and it would reward their friends and Humana, United HealthCare Cigna etc. etc. so they could go one earning their hundred million $ salaries.

If we think these people are going to surrender their privileges without a fight we’re in real trouble.

Oh, what a difference a robust public option will make, eh?

thanks. I’d forgotten about that database. This firm has six professional registered lobbyists on its fulltime payroll??? hmm.. I wonder what they do for a living. Also, they employ the following Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, Locke Liddell Strategies, Greenberg Traurig (actually a law firm, I think), Alston & Bird.

There never should have been any thought given to for-profit health insurance given how the insurance model works, but Ronnie and Milton and the GOP would have none of it and Reagan Democrats agreed. By now it’s official. The American dream is now to monetize anything and everything. Why? Because our value system has changed, perhaps irrevocably.

If you really wanted to go in that direction, America is proof that you can create a “free” market in anything. Whether that’s a good thing for people or for an economy is secondary to this insane notion that free markets solve all problems without government intervention and without creating in its wake new and fairly insoluble problems.

The Blue Dogs are a symptom of a much bigger problem. They think in terms of markets and monetization of traditionally not-for-profit service models like health care. They do not think in terms of sound macroeconomic policy or consider individual need.

About the most you can hope for would be for the Blue Dogs to criminalize certain insurance industry practices. I happen to believe that it should be a felony for a health care company to rescind an individual’s policy for an error of omission or misstatement on one’s application if there is no rational and material connection between the error and the presumably ill health of the policyholder whose contract they wish to rescind. I want to see the penalty be five years in prison for the CEO and a fine of not less than $250,000 nor more than $1,000,000 for the company plus a permanent injunction prohibiting rescission of the contract.

But that’s a pipe dream because rescinding a sick patient’s policy, denying coverage that is clearly covered and medically appropriate, and all sorts of deceptions and falsehoods in making the initial sale are all acceptable ways of doing business in the insurance business. If you accept the for-profit insurance model as appropriate for health care, then you accept all this too.

Meanwhile, Al Capone, disguised as an insurance company CEO, was busy making the bootlegging business look like a charity venture.

and don’t forget Big Ins. boasts that they have employees in 30 states dedicated to tracking congressional town halls and other public appearances

Does this mean that they are not performing “their functions” in denying health care to their policy holders.

My next door neighbors are on Medicare Advantage and have no plans to change. They like that their MA provider pays for alternative therapies i.e. naturapaths. Their provider only pays a paltry sum but it is what my neighbors cite as the reason they choose their MA plan.

My bet is these MA creeps are exploiting niches in elderly populations and giving the fast sales pitch.

Medicare Advantage: Both creepy and ugly.

So, why then are we setting up a health finance system to give even more subsidies to private health insurers for what the government can do cheaper and better? Isn’t that like doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Humana is a HMO, and as such makes its profits by providing as little care as possible. I worked for a subsidiary of a CIGNA HMO. We were very profitable, and when I was upbraided by my regional supervisor for putting quality of care as my top priority and profitability as my second priority, I knew it was time to leave. I did not believe this when I first heard it, but the AARP monthly confirmed that Humana sales folk hang around at Sam’s pharmacies looking for elderly to try and get them to sign-on to Humana.

tk1200, I think this is an excellent point:

The Blue Dogs are a symptom of a much bigger problem. They think in terms of markets and monetization of traditionally not-for-profit service models like health care. They do not think in terms of sound macroeconomic policy or consider individual need.

Jim Cooper is from Nashville, the home of this kind of nonsense. A good example is Corrections Corporation of America, a Nashville company, that was set up to deal with privatizing prisons. It is obvious that the government can do this cheaper than the private alternative. If not, then it is because they pay less than the public system pays.

It’s an interesting question. I’m inclined to think that maybe once they played a valuable role. I don’t think they do today, and in fact, I think they are a drain on an important segment of the system. On balance I think they need to go.

masslib, good point. I don’t really see why we are doing that. In the posts I have done on insurance company results, I have noted the number of policyholders has decreased as people have been fired or laid off in the current recession. Obviously the companies will benefit if everyone is required to buy their stuff and the government subsidizes the less well off. I don’t see the wisdom of that.

I should also say I think that most countries, even those with government run programs, have private insurance companies that fill specific needs. Lots of wealthy people want extras that these companies provide, and lots of not so wealthy people buy it too. Nothing wrong with that.

I should also note that sensible planning requires serious thought for the phase-out.

My coverage is with a non-profit HMO with no money going to investors, and there is no insurance company or insurance claim forms, essentially a large non-profit group practice. Incentive to provide good care is based on the desire to keep members, and doctors’ desire to practice good medicine. Medicare Advantage money goes directly and primarily into patient care, not profits or big CEO salaries. This is what we WANT government to do. I would still prefer national single payer for everyone, but short of that, the non-profit model is a good one not to be conflated with groups like Humana.
I worked there and know it from the inside too. A negative side lately is that competition with unscrupulous competitors who offer very low premiums and then deny services led this plan to start offering various lower premium plans, which encourages young healthy people to sign on for an inexpensive plan but adds to administrative inefficiency and detracts from good care when they get sick. Used to be that everyone had the same coverage and same premiums. Doctors discussing cost in exam rooms was a new concept to us. The reasoning for the change was that they were getting the sickest patients who came there knowing they would get needed care, raising costs and making it hard to compete with the crappy for-profit plans that were getting the healthiest patients by offering low premiums. Some serious regulation of the profit plans would reduce this trend., (and it’s another reason for single payer).
Part of the problem is that so many Dems have bought into the conservative concept that public needs can only be met by supporting for-profit private enterprise, that government programs don’t work, and that non-profits are suspect and only to be temporarily funded and have to re-invent themselves every few years. Reagan won that battle (so far). Of course those vaunted for-profit enterprises also support the politicians.

I agree & disagree with your comment about addding extras. In the U.K. everyone is covered by the (single-payer) NHS system but you can top that up with private insurance (such as BUPA). However, under the NHS it is commonly the case that, e.g. prior to routine surgery the patient is admitted the day before (a shock for most Americans), while those treated under BUPA insurance have the usual 5.00 a.m. same day admission. BUPA patients are typically seen/operated on earlier, but what is fascinating is that the doctor/surgeon is usually the same m.d. in both cases.

A real example: my 91 year old father recently had a knee replacement surgery. The doctor told him he would treat him immediately if he ‘went private’ (at a cost of 15,000 pounds ~ $25,000) but would otherwise face the ‘waiting list’. He actaully had to wait a whole 3 weeks! The only real difference between the NHS & BUPA in this case (other than the net $25,000 of course) was that his NHS admission was for 7 days while his private admission would have been 2 weeks. This is a bit of a joke as the treatment was so successful that he persuaded the doctor to discharge him after 4 days. The U.K. spends about 6/7% of GDP on health care not 16% of total income on health INSUANCE/DRUGS.

Thanks, that’s helpful.

the insurance companies, and the hospitals too, used to be non-profit, and in general, everyone was focused on delivering, and paying for, the best of care to patients.

so yeah, at one time they were useful.

FYI – Humana is your supplemental along with Medicare…You may want to check that. If your involved in Medicare Advantage – Medicare has nothing to do with covering you. You still remain a member in Medicare, however you are not enrolled in the Origional Medicare program and would receieve no coverage or services via the Red, White and Blue card and it is not a supplement. However if you are enrolled in a Medicare Supplement with Humana and a seperate part D then you need to do some research as to the plan that you have and compare prices. All standard Medicare supplements are the same and provide the same benefits. For example in Iowa plan F is only $152.50/mth at 65 for Humana and you get a Silver Sneakers membership – however the same plan F with Mutual of Omaha is as low as $76.20/mth – Mutual of Omaha’s financial strength and name recognition are indisputable. I guess I would take take the $90 and pay for my own senior discount rated membership – even as a member at a Silver Sneakers location you can be involved in the classes and be a non Humana member.

The U.S. economy depends on continual warfare now, which means money goes to any kind of weapon production–in this case, Big Pharma, or drugs or stem cell-related products, that could be more devastating than nuclear weapons. That is why we will not have single-payor or “government-payor” care anytime soon. This is a hot area because of recent discoveries in neuroscience. Check out Thomas Metzinger’s “The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self,” (Basic Books, 2009):

When certain processing stages are elevated to the level of conscious experience and bound into the self-model active in your brain, the become available for ALL your mental capacities. Now you experience them as your OWN thoughts or urges to act—as properties that BELONG to you. They appear spontaneous because they are the first link in the chain to cross the border from unconscious to conscious brain processes; you have the IMPRESSION that they appeared in your mind “out of the blue,” so to speak. The unconsious precursor is invisible, but the link exists. The fact that the conscious experience is just a SLIVER of the process in the brain, and since THIS fact does NOT appear to us, we have the robust experience of being able to spontaneously initiate causal chains. This is the appearance of an agent. The brain is blind to its own inner workings.

The science of the mind is now beginning to reintroduce those hidden facts into our ego tunnels.

The idea of free will does not exist in our minds alone—it is also a social institution. It is a window connecting us with social practice around us. The assumption that something like free agency exists is a concept fundamental to our legal system and the rules governing societies—rules built on accountability and guilt. These rules are mirrored deep in the structure of our self-model and this incessant mirroring, created complex social networks. If one day, we must tell an entirely different story about what human will is this will affect our societies in an unprecedented way. For example, it would be meaningless to punish people (as opposed to rehabilitating them). RETRIBUTION would then appear to be a STONE AGE concept, something we inherited from animals.

When neuroscience discovers the sufficient neural correlates for willing, desiring, and executing an action, we will be able to cause, amplify and modulate the conscious experience of will. It will become clear that the ACTUAL causes of our actions often have very little to do with what the conscious self tells us.

We now have an information jungle that is increasing each day. It already is reconfiguring our brain. Perhaps our body perception will change as we learn to control multiple avatars in multiple virtual realities, embedding our conscious self into entirely new kinds of senorimotor loopos. A growing number of social interactions may be avatar-to-avatar and we already know that social interactions in cyberspace increase the sense of presence more strongly than higher-resolution graphics ever could. We may finallly come to understand that a lot of our conscious social life has been all along-and interaction between images, a highly mediated process in which mental MODELS of persons begin to causally influence one another.

We already use the the Internet as part of our self-model. We use it for exernal memory storage , as a cognitive prosthesis and for emotional autoregulation. We are learning to multitask, our attention span is shorter and our social rels have a disembodied character.

A related problem is management of our attention. The ability to attend to our environment, to our own feelings to those of others as naturally evolved feature of the human braing. Attention is a finaite commodity. Our brains can generate only a limited amount of attention each day.

The advertisement and entertainment industries are attacking our foundations for experience and trying to rob us of our scarce attention. New insight s into the human mind by cognitive and brain science “neuromarketing” is one of the ugly new buzzwords. If I am right that consciousness is the space of attentional agency and if it is also true that the experience of controling and sustaining your focus of attention is one of the deeper layers of phenomenal (experience) selfhood, then we are witnessing not only an organized attack on the space of consciousness per se, but a form of depersonalization. New media may create a new form of waking consciousness that resembles weakly subjective states—a mixture of dreaming, dementia, intoxication and infantilization.
Lives can be ruined because we have not done our homework. The price of denial may rise. Many new psychoactive substances of the hallucinogen-type—such as 2C-B (“Venus” or “Nexus”) or 2C-T-7 (Blue Mystic” or “T7”0 are out on the illegal market without any clinical testing; their numbers will continue to increase.
And that’s just the old problems the homework we never did. In our ultrafast, ever more competitive and RUTHLESS modern societies, very few people are seeking deeper spritual experience. They want alterness, concentration, emotional stability, and charisma—things thatr lead to success. In the rich societies of the world, people are growing older than ever before—and they want not just quantity but QUALITY of life. BIG PHARMA knows this. Everybody has heard of modafinil, and perhaps that is already with us in the Iraq war; but there are at least 40 new molecules in the pipeline. There is hope and alarmism is not the right attitude, but the technology is not going away.
Big Pharma, circumventing the border between legal and illegal substances is quietly developing new compounds; they know that cognitive enhancers will reap them hefty future profits from “nonmedical use.” For instance, Cephalon, maker of modafinil has said that 90 percent of prescriptions currently are for off-label used. The spread of Internet pharmacies has given them new ways for distribution and new tools for mass testing potential long-term effects.
Modern neuroethics will have to careat a new approach to drug policy: The key question is: Which brain states should be legal? http://apocalypse-blues.typepad.com/