Comments on: Yanking Health Coverage Wins A Bonus

The Skinny: California Lawsuit Shines Light On Little-Known Health Insurance Practice

[afmca]

This is why the Repub arguements against single payer universal health coverage is just a cover-up for their real reason for hating this plan - greed and lack of empathy. You could still have a robust private sector competing for business, but it is shown that a self-policing industry is a sham. I''ll bet Patsy Bates would welcome more socialized medicine if it got that tube out of her chest. Health Net and the other examples of corporate greed is another of Bush''s legacies.

[eskieville1]

A universal single payer health care system is needed NOW!Capitalism and health care are a bad mix--that is now obvious to all.

[enriquecaliente]

Insurance Companies = A license to steal.

[antoniof123]

I am amazed that some of you know to breath the air. Those of you who say Hillary''s health plan is this monster ready to eat you don''t have a clue. Read it on your own if you can read because if you can''t then don''t say something that some shock jock has stated.

It is not socialized medicine too bad because that may be the only way to save our medical environment here in this country.

But the shock jocks know everything I forgot read it you may be surprised otherwise keep quite it is getting old swift boating is so reactionary and that is well not worth the time of day.

[cathaleen]

I am not shocked. The insurance companies have been doing this for years. This is capitalism at its best.

[myidoncbs]

A very random thinker (random_radar) asked, "So its okay to lie? Isn''t that the issue here?

If Bates was truthful, then I agree that Health Net is evil."

The issue here is that the insurance company is the LIAR, the scammer, the blood sucking skumbag! The idea which the insurance companies sell is "pooled risk". Everybody puts money in the pot, some will get sick, the pot pays them for their healthcare. But what they REALLY do is this: "take money from as many people as possible, screening out anyone who they think might get sick, then pay nobody and pocket all the money." That is a SCAM, pure and simple. And because they prey on people''s fear of getting sick, and they have no intention of paying to help those who are truly sick, it is an EVIL SCAM.

The fact that some people lie to get insurance is directly due to the fact that the insurance companies won''t insure them if they don''t lie. I don''t condone lying, but what other option do people have?

If we had a truely universal health care system, like ALL of the other civilized countries in the world, then we would not have any of these problems.

[missingamerica]

Hah. Iraq isn''t the only disaster of Jr. and his Republican pals.

Take the CRB CI. The crude oil segment is climbing in U.S. $ terms, but flat or declining in Canadian $s. How?

1) Republicans change bankruptcy law to make it tough for Joe or Jane Average to escape overwhelming debt & created a "Business Is a Law Unto Itself!" atmosphere.

2) Fed wants to "prove" Bush''s "trickle down" tax cut policies & hides the impact of lost manufacturing & service jobs by lowering interest rates - i.e., the illusion of "success" via money supply & consumer debt manipulation.

3) Effect? The financial industry seized the opportunity & made loan after loan they previously would not have made.

4) Consumer ability to make debt payments was finally impacted by: a) wages stagnant or declining; b) no "better" jobs to get; c) the direct & indirect effects of soaring energy costs caused by Bush''s imperialistic activities in Iraq.

5) Effect? Sub-prime market crashes. The Fed lowers interest rates to prop up the stock market.

6) Effect? The U.S. $ takes it in the teeth.

7) Effect? Oil - in U.S. $ terms - soars. The price of imports across the board soar at something like a 10.3% annual pace in the quarter

Result? It puts the inclined plane wrapped around a shaft to us.

It also primes the next Administration for a catastrophe, which probably has the Republicans rolling with laughter as they sip their expensive wines and cognacs at their posh clubs in the evenings.

[slim1h2o]

Insurance companies are little more than criminal enterprises scamming people out of their money and providing nothing of value in return.

Posted by tuckerndfw at 12:41 PM : Nov 09, 2007

Agreed, However, their lobbying arm in congress ensures, nothing will be done to correct the situation. Just more Bushitt.

[dbl06]

I''m not sure an 83 yr old ex-president showing some signs of senility is fair game, but the question is fairly easy to answer. There have been a whole lot of innocent Iraqis killed that would still be alive if Saddamn were still in power(what little power he had left). I guess we should mention the nearly 4000 dead and 25,000 wounded who would be better off. Of course those are the Americans. The world would be a better place if George Bush had never been born. And George H. W. Bush wouldn''t have to alibi for him.

[condumism]

Posted by tuckerndfw
Voting for Hillary is the same as voting for Bush.

Only in the fact that Hillary will continue to allow Corporations to run this American disaster. However, voting for Giuliani, McCain, Thompson, or Rommel IS EXACTLY THE SAME as voting for Bush in every way.

so we shouldn''t have done anything after the highjackers did their acts? Just let the rest of the world think anyone can come into our country and destroy all those lives? I don''t think so. Stay out of Iraq maybe, but not Afganistan.....

[slim1h2o]

The Los Angeles Times reports that one of California''s largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policy holders were dropped and how much money was saved.

This *** has been going on for years. There should be alaw to protect policy holders from being dropped in the middle of their operation, or treatment.

Further more these Insurance Co''s should be ran out of business, when they get caught dropping their clients, in such situations.

[iceman_1960]

It"s just too d*amned easy for the wealthy and the Upper Middle Class to take this "If it ain"t broke, don"t fix it" attitude to the American health care system.

Because for THEM it isn"t broke.

These are the folks who brought us child labor in textile mills and coal mines before the bleeding-heart social reformers got laws passed to prohibit those practices.

[gunnerv1]

tuckerndfw You won''t be "giving" your money to them because the Gov''t will be Taking it.

[iceman_1960]

"It"s the kind of story that makes Europeans look at the American health care system and shake their heads."

Conservatives like Bush denounce "socialized medicine" but they offer nothing but Pie-in-the-Sky pablum by way of an alternative.

"We need to help move all poor kids into private insurance coverage..." blah blah blah...

Might as well wish upon a star for that to happen.

[bwessels]

GHWB, it is worth looking at the balance sheet, because the answer is maybe not obvious. Saddam was a brutal dictator, but he was both secular and contained. Your Reagan administration saw fit to arm and aid him against Iran during the 1980s for these reasons. Radical Islamist sentiment like al Qaida was a danger from places like Iran, and later, Taliban Afghanistan.

Of course you betrayed Saddam by selling weapons to Iran as well, and he then betrayed you by invading Kuwait. You decided to punish but not remove him in 1991. Dictators are better than Ayatollahs, apparently. You left the mess for Clinton.

Meanwhile the Islamists were pretty ticked off about Americans on sacred Saudi sand, our abandonment of Iraqi Shiites to old ally Saddam, and general U.S. collusion with Middle East scumbags. 9/11 happens. Boy George links it to Saddam, which is as close to 180 degrees off course as you can get. We re-invade the secular state to ferret out those Islamic radicals, but mostly to make you proud, Dad.

Now we are in the middle of the Iraqi Civil War to create a Sunni state, an Islamic Shiite state (Iran #2), and Kurdistan. None of the factions fears the U.S. military or the Iraqi military. They all feared Saddam.

[mswolfestock]

"Our ultimate goal would be to convert them to Christianity," said youth pastor Andy Thomas. "If that doesn''t happen, I don''t know what will be next."

. . . . oh, heck, pastor, just burn a few of them at the stake, or maybe throw water on them and they''ll melt like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. I think the "Christians" in Rossville need to lighten up a little bit. If they would open their minds and put their prejudices aside, they might just learn something. To the "Christians" in Rossville: this is still a free country, we are still supposed to enjoy the separation of church and state. This country was founded on the notion that EVERYBODY has the freedom to worship (or not) as they choose. If y''all got this upset about Wiccans, what would you do if a bunch of Muslims came to town and they wanted to build a Mosque?

[random_radar]

"Health Net contended that Bates failed to disclose heart problems and shaved 35 pounds off her weight on her application."

So its okay to lie? Isn''t that the issue here?

If Bates was truthful, then I agree that Health Net is evil. But if Bates really did lie on her application, then tough luck about being canceled.

Of course, lots of people wouldn''t agree with me. I wonder how many of them lie on their applications, resumes, and affadavits? Are we really sympathetic people or trying to cover our own sins?

[ianlou]

May she catch the Clap and lose her health insurance under the No-Tramp clause.