Old China Patterns

2 Comments

1. LoudMatt
   10/01/2010 at 11:11 am

   NET WORTH:$5702 crappy cell phones5 bank cards and some Tracfone minutes (all expired, overdrawn or empty)Camcorder3 mp cameraA very bad chef’s knife5 3 1/2″ floppiesEmpty Coronas3 pieces of 12k gold plated jewelry… one being a knockoff watchHomemade honey bear bong3/4 bottle of Palmolive dish soapVERDICT: $UCCE$$!!!!!Bonus: 2 handguns pointed at duckface

2. Monte
   12/25/2010 at 5:46 am

   Derin: I don't know where to begin. This story is so profoundly distorted in every detail that debunking it would take days. But every detail is a fraudulent representation of what the strategy document contains, written with cynical speculation designed to play on fears of government control. It is utterly groundless.

   As to the opening question: What should the motivating factor be? We have 50 million un-insured Americans in the USA. 18,000 of them – mothers, dads, grandmas, grandpas, children, friends – die prematurely every single year from lack of care. 18,000 Americans die! I'd call that rationing!

   The reason is that the motivating factor is profit. Since the days of Harry Truman, the insurance industry has succeeded in stopping reform in its tracks – now, at the cost of 18,000 lives a year.

   The industry is among the most astonishingly inefficient ever created. 1 dollar in 3 that it gets – actually 37% – is spent on overhead, including private jets, CEOs with salaries of up to $30M, and gold plated flatware. Read the story of the former CIGNA exec who left the industry in dismay at what people's premiums were buying at Someone's premiums paid for my dinner on gold-rimmed china. $800 billion, some estimate, is squandered by this industry.

   Medicare, by contrast, has an overhead that is merely a fraction of that. And Medicare users rate their experience much higher than do those who are privately insured. And Medicare, unlike private insurers, don't have departments charged with finding ways to deny care to their insureds, nor do they keep their stockholders happy by dumping people who are really sick.

   Further, 94% of the health insurance markets in the USA are virtual monopolies, dominated by one or two larges companies that give no competitive options, and charge whatever they wish.

   Right now, these companies are spending $1.5 million of excess premium profits every day disseminating information like the article you quote. I wonder how many patients' $2M lifetime limits have been exhausted during this campaign. The industry employs 350 former congressmen and former congress staffers to lobby Congress every day. Many of the leaders in Congress – including our Senator Grassley – have the healthcare industry as the largest single funders of their election campaigns. Chairman Baucus receives more re-election money from the industry than he receives from his home state! The industry is spending tens of millions of our premiums on making sure that Congress allows them to keep on overcharging us.

   The insurance companies profits have risen 450% since 2001. During the same period, our premiums have increased 85%. Why have our premiums gone up at all when their profits have risen so dramatically?

   This is a scam that gets people killed by the thousands for one reason alone: excessive profit.

   And the tool they use to mask this demonic scheme is fear of government – yet government's track record is a world better than theirs.

   Study those articles, Derin – demand substantiation, not opinion. Disregard language that implies evil motives without clear facts. These are the same tools that have kept America sick and insurance companies fat since Harry Truman was president, and bucking them off is far harder than resisting anything government does. Follow the money.