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Insurance Companies Run Death Panels When They Deny Coverage
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Health care reform protestors, extremist radio and television talkers and some mainstream Republicans trying to kill President Obama’s health care reform initiative have frequently, but falsely, claimed the health plan would create government “death panels” to decide who gets treatment and who dies.
(Click here to find out the truth behind other big lies about health care reform.)
What these defenders of the private health insurance industry don’t say is that those panels already exist. But they are not operated by the government—they are run by the private health insurance industry itself.
New data from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) finds that more than 20 percent of medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by the patients’ doctors, are
rejected by California’s largest private insurers, amounting to very real death panels in practice daily in the nation’s biggest state.
The union analyzed data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. From 2002 through June 30, 2009, the six largest insurers operating in California rejected 31.2 million claims for care—21 percent of all claims. Says Deborah Burger, RN, CNA/NNOC co-president:
With all the dishonest claims made by some politicians about alleged “death panels” in proposed national legislation, the reality for patients today is a daily, cold-hearted rejection of desperately needed medical care by the nation’s biggest and wealthiest insurance companies simply because they don’t want to pay for it.
According to the CNA/NNOC survey, in just the first six months of 2009, PacifiCare denied 40 percent of all California claims. Cigna rejected one-third of all claims and California Blues rejected 28 percent of claims for the first half of 2009. Says Burger:
Every claim that is denied represents a real patient enduring pain and suffering. Every denial has real, sometimes fatal consequences.
For example, PacifiCare, says CNN/NNOC, denied a special procedure for treatment of bone cancer for Nick Colombo, a 17-year-old teen from Placentia, Calif. After protests organized by Nick’s family and friends, CNA/NNOC and netroots activists, PacifiCare reversed its decision. But the delay resulted in critical time lost, and Nick ultimately died. Says his older bother Rickey:
This was his last effort and the procedure had worked before with people in Nick’s situation.
Burger says the United States is only is the only industrialized country where, “human lives are sacrificed for private profit.”
CNA/NNOC will release the full study next week at its convention in San Francisco, where participants will hear from a panel of nurse leaders in Canada, Great Britain and Australia who will explode the myths about their national healthcare systems.
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7 Comments
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As a cancer survivor who was lucky enough to get the life saving treatment I needed at the time, I know what it’s like to wait for approval. Every aspect of the stem cell transplant I received was eventually covered, including the clinical trials I participated in. But I met other patients along the way who were not as fortunate as I was; patients who missed eligibility by days, or whose coverage had maxed out. Even I had to go back to work before starting treatment— with a triple lumen Hickman catheter in my chest— because my health care coverage was about to lapse.
Not all health care is created equally. It is agonizing for patients and their loved ones to wait for the go-ahead when every second counts. My heartfelt condolences go out to the family and friends of Nick Colombo; that could have easily been my situation twelve years ago. Who knows what the criteria was; who knows how the administrators on the transplant committee came to their decision? But one thing is for certain—to delay is just as deadly as to deny. Their money, or your life—someone’s bonus or someone’s funeral. The cost remains dear.
You couldn’t have said it better. The health insurance companies are a death panel which often chooses whether someone stays alive or not on the basis of mistakes on insurance applications, preexisting conditions, premiums being paid up to date or not, etc.etc. It’s time to hold these insurance industry personnel accountable for their actions, and put their feet to the fire. The Republicans had said in the past, and continue to say now that they don’t give a hoot whether you live or die. Does President Obama still think he can get a bipartisan consensus about any sort of meaningful health care reform? It’s time to get off the fence, and stand up to idiots who would stand in the way of adequate health care for all Americans, as some of them still think the president was born in Kenya, or perhaps Australia with that birth certificate which belonged to an Australian who was quite upset to find that someone had stolen it. Idiot comes from the Greek word “Idiotus,” which means someone who refuses to do anything for the common good. I can’t think of anything
more descriptive of the current thinking of most modern day Republicans, most of which appear to be most interested in which companies provide the best campaign contributions. Are we to once again be fooled by previous Ronald Reagan fears of socialists overrunning our cities? He had even hosted door to door Tupperware parties for unsuspecting housewives complete with a golden record explaining how if we adopted a public health care system, we would be well on our way to becoming a communist country. Well medicare and medicaid started at some point, and our elderly population haven’t subsequently become communists. It’s time to see through all the hoopla, and get down to the serious work of getting adequate health care to anyone who needs it.
We need Health Care Reform and Employee Free Choice! We have supported Obama and he has gone way out on a limb for us.
The Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies have our money. Unionist’s have fought to get health care paid for by our employers. Now look they are using it against us!
We are in control. I have suggested this in the past. The AFL/CIO needs to say we are going to start offering health insurance to our members. It will be our own insurance company. All we have to do to be insured is be a member.
We will need to negotiate contracts and take paid health care out and ask for the money our companies are saying they are paying for our insurance. Increase our union dues to cover it.
We will then be able to use the excess money like the health care lobbyist’s do now only not against us but in our best interest.
This will do the same as Health Care Reform and Employee Free Choice.
The Insurance Companies will lose our business. Teh republicans will have a reason to work with our party and Union membership will increase.
We need Health Care Reform and Employee Free Choice! We have supported Obama and he has gone way out on a limb for us.
The Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies have our money. Unionist’s have fought to get health care paid for by our employers. Now look they are using it against us!
We are in control. I have suggested this in the past. The AFL/CIO needs to say we are going to start offering health insurance to our members. It will be our own insurance company. All we have to do to be insured is be a member.
We will need to negotiate contracts and take paid health care out and ask for the money our companies are saying they are paying for our insurance. Increase our union dues to cover it.
We will then be able to use the excess money like the health care lobbyist’s do now only not against us but in our best interest.
This will do the same as Health Care Reform and Employee Free Choice.
The Insurance Companies will lose our business. The republicans will have a reason to work with our party and Union membership will increase. Remember I said, say we are going to do this and get politics moving again.
Union Brothers and Sisters,
Many of these comments are excellent! Can you imagine the Power that Unions would have if they were the provider of Insurance to Working People? People, Millions of Working People would be flocking to join a Labor Union if this was a pathway to having High Quality, Dependable, Health Care Insurance that worked.
I have been astounded by the inability of so many to see some of these things that are not so complicated, but the NOISE in the channel today has become filled with the Language of Misdirection. Like the stories of ‘Extraordinary Security” ONLY as a result of taking the “Extraordinary Steps needed to Protect America.” Well, I do recall we have seen “Extraordinary Results” come from other areas, like school activities, when Extraordinary methods of Cheating had become a standard. Cheating has been the Standard for far too long
Or activities like when Bernie Madoff showed us how he could drive the Largest Financial Fraud by Breaking the Law and getting others to Look the Other Way. Now that was simply “Extraordinary!” But the Price to be Paid is not worth the End Result, or the difficulties that will be faced after the disaster. We could talk about many other issues, like Katrina, or Failed Bridges, but it all comes back to thinking that you can simply get “MORE with LESS” and Less, and less. We have reached the Point of Diminishing Returns!!
LESS produces LESS… PERIOD! This is Engineered Failure, driven Only by Economics that place Profits before People. This Short Term Thinking always comes with a COST! Today we are faced with Hundreds and Thousands of these Short Term Events… All Coming Home to Roost! It’s hard to Move Forward when you have to fix ALL of the Problems of the Past. Soon this equation will come back to Haunt You… You only will have “MORE PROBLEMS to address with LESS Tools available to Fix them.” Then you are Set Up for Life, with continued Failure! This would appear to be the state of the current condition!
Hello!!
America is at a Crossroads, with Labor, Health Care, Public Education and many other important topics. If we choose to do the Heavy Lifting and the Hard Work that is necessary, and if we Build with Integrity, we have a chance to Build for the Future. If we look for the “Easy Way Out,” or look for short term solutions, we will find that these critical issues will simply not go away. Less will buy Less, and we will find that many, many of our needs, many of our Brothers and Sisters will not be served. So who will LOSE?
We have seen in the past that it was the Indians, the Slaves, Blacks, Chinese, Hispanics, the Poor, our Children, Women, the History is Clear. And the Winner has always been the MONEY and the POWER.
Working People did not come together for the purpose of becoming SLAVES in this 21st Century. It’s time to Get Up, Stand Up and, don’t Give Up the FIGHT! We MUST EDUCATE our OWN to WIN!!
For years I have been responding to articles written here about the Abuse and Failure of the Workmen’s Compensation Schemes which affect the Health Care Delivery system for many of our Injured Workers. To date, this one single issue, directly related to Health Care Delivery to Working Men and Women, has failed to even become a BLIP on this 21st Century Radar Screen for Labor. It is as if this single topic is such a Hot Potato, no one, not even LABOR will touch it, address it, or even raise it as a Health Care Delivery Issue!
Labor Leaders remain SILENT on these crimes against our own, our own Members, our own Mothers and Fathers, Brothers and Sisters, Son’s and Daughters. Here is an entire class of injured people that know the horror of DENIAL, DELAY and ABUSE, driven by the Daily Crimes of Insurance Profiteers. Yet all we hear from this important resource group is S I L E N C E!! It’s as if our own Labor Leaders fail to understand the plight and condition of their own Injured Workers. Are these Injured and Disabled Members ALL to be Forgotten?
Working People do WORK HARD, but our Leadership needs to work SMART! The many Millions of Injured Workers have a VOICE that needs to be HEARD! This part of the American Working Family needs the benefit of Help, Assistance and Strong Leadership in this important FIGHT. The S I L E N C E of this important VOICE is a Signal. It’s a sign of indifference, a sign of a Failure to Represent, it is not a pathway to Build on for the Future! Who will Lead and take responsibility for this Obligation of Representation?
It’s time to WAKE UP!! We are all in this thing together, there is little to no escape in the end, so let’s work smart together! Time is not our Friend, Money is not our TOOL, all we have is the Labor of our body, the soul of our Heart, and the Miracle Gift of our Mind! We Shall Over Come if we Use Our Tools to serve ALL!
Your Comments are encouraged and welcome!
Craig Michie
NvVIAW@aol.com – Nevada Voters Injured At Work
Will anyone, anyone at all, please tell me how a “public option” will fix this? Please, spare us the “ifs”, “ands” or “buts”. Just show us the wording in any proposed public option that would solve the denial problem.
(The question is rhetorical. Whatever remains of the watered-down version of the original “public option” that was a watered-down version of true reform, will not solve the problem of denials.)
The only solution is single payer. That’s what should come out of the upcoming AFL-CIO Convention. Anything less is a retreat, and a double-cross to America’s working class.
Period!
The associated press just came out with the latest in “new releases,”
and said “Health care overhaul has been losing support, will polls showing only a slim majority thinks Congress should press ahead.”
I guess, even with the advent of spell check on their computers,
some of them still have difficulty spelling, but never mind that.
We need to challenge the major mass media, as theoretically,
in order to broadcast, according to FCC regulations, they’re suppose to provide some sort of public service. It is not a public service to lie about issues so very fundamental to the U.S. public.
The fact is, the majority of people in these United States support the “public option,” and the single payer system. My guess is that the major mass media must be getting their information from the fox noise channel, and we all know just how fair and unbiased Murdoch is. My brother told me that Jenkins of the Kansas legislature mailed him,and his wife, mailers which stated that the President is a socialist, that he was trying to take away the people’s right to private health insurance, that he shouldn’t be trusted, and that he has some sort of hidden agenda regarding health care reform generally. There should be a law against a legislator lying to their constituents. Turns out that her campaigns are funded by guess who? She’s a bribed, and paid pundit of the various insurance industry lobbyists. What can be done to defend ourselves against these freaks who allege they represent their broad constituency, while taking bribes both on, and below the table from corporations which have little if any concern about anything other than a profit? These people are supposed to be public servants, not a demagoguery of freaks standing on predetermined platforms, whose political will, and policies are manufactured in direct accordance with the will of those who pay the most in campaign contributions. The President is not a socialist, and a decent health care system is not going to turn all of us into communists, capitalists, socialists, democrats, republicans, or anything else, except a more healthy nation.