California Insurers Reject More Than Quarter of All Claims
A new study by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) finds that California’s largest private insurance companies continue to deny more than one-fourth of all claims and two firms rejected about 40 percent of submitted claims.
CNA/NNU Co-President DeAnn McEwen says the rejection rates show one reason why:
medical bills are a prime source of personal bankruptcies as doctors and hospitals will push patients and their families to make up what the insurer denies.
For the first three quarters of 2010, seven California insurance giants rejected 13.1 million claims—26 percent of all claims submitted—a number only slightly below the 26.8 percent rate for 2009. The data, new findings by the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the CNA/NNU research arm, is based on data from the California Department of Managed Health Care.
Health Care Giants Spent $86 Million in Effort to Kill Reform
We reported that Big Insurance funneled millions of dollars to the Chamber of Commerce to fight health care reform and millions more to try and water down the law once it was passed. Now Bloomberg Business News reporter Drew Armstrong has put a price tag on the effort to kill the bill. In an article earlier this week, Armstrong says tax records show big health insurers last year gave the Chamber $86.2 million that was used to oppose the health care overhaul law.
The Chamber is not required to disclose its donors, but unnamed sources told Bloomberg that the money came from America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an industry trade group that represents companies like Cigna and UnitedHealth Group. AHIP’s donation accounted for 40 percent of all the money the Chamber received in 2009.
Big Insurance Funds Chamber of Commerce to Kill Health Care Reform
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The nation’s biggest health insurers have been funneling money quietly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to air lie-filled, scare-mongering commercials about health care reform.
Like Capt. Renault, who discovered there was gambling going on at Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca, we are: “Shocked, shocked….” Yeah, right.
Most observers of the health care reform fight suspected the major insurers that make up the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) were helping to foot the bill for the latest round of ads by two “business coalitions” subsidized by the Chamber. But it wasn’t until Peter Stone at the National Journal connected the dots that we had proof.
Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, says the report confirms
one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets—which is big insurance companies are fighting tooth and nail to kill health reform that will wrest power from their hands and give it to American families.
At Roundtables, Union Members Call for Health Care Reform
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Rosie Britz, a member of the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA), is just one of thousands of union volunteers who have put time and effort into the fight for health care reform. Britz says health care reform is critical for the uninsured—as well as ensuring people like her, who have insurance, have more security:
“This health care bill will be a safety net for all of us construction workers. It’s got to get done. We cannot sit on our hands and hope someone else will do it.”
Britz was one of the union members who attended a roundtable discussion Tuesday in Mosinee, Wis., one of several roundtables around the country this week to get the word out about the need for health care reform. Union members, community allies and small business owners also came together for health care roundtables in South Bend and other Indiana cities.
You can be a part of the effort. Contact your senators and ask for real health care reform.
Health Care Reform Action: Rallies, a ‘Die-In’ and a Visit from the VP
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In Hartford, Conn., union and health care activists marched on the headquarters of health insurance giant Aetna. In Minnetonka, Minn., the target was the posh headquarters of UnitedHealthcare. And in Fargo, N.D., demonstrators took a list of health care reform demands to the offices of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota.
In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker led a rally and march of several hundred to CIGNA’s headquarters.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden today met with Alliance for Retired Americans seniors to describe how the administration’s health care plan would benefit them.
Those rallies and marches and dozens of others in cities around the country were part of a National Day of Action for health care reform and against the private health insurance companies’ multimillion-dollar campaign to block comprehensive reform that includes a quality and affordable public health insurance option.
Health Care Reform Needs Public Option—Not Band-Aid
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Today, union and health care activists around the country are raising their voices against the private health insurance companies’ mutlimillion-dollar campaign to block health care reform. In dozens of rallies and demonstrations they are saying: “Big Insurance: We’re sick of it.”
Union members are joining a march on Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association’s Portland, Ore., headquarters. In a letter to Blue Cross President Scott Serota, Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain calls on the company to cease opposition to a public health insurance option and stop the use of union members’ premium payments to fund lobbying against a public option.
Union members in Oregon have spent too many years at the bargaining table knowing that they have to choose between bargaining for better wages, or maintaining their healthcare. This is unsustainable; healthcare reform with true cost controls is necessary. For union members to now see their healthcare dollars spent lobbying against the reform they support is absolutely unacceptable.
Rallies Set Across Nation to Protest Big Insurance
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Health care activists around the nation tomorrow will tell the huge private health insurance companies that are spending millions of dollars to derail health care reform:
“Big Insurance: We’re sick of it!”
In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will lead a rally and march from the steps of City Hall to CIGNA’s world headquarters to call on their executives to stop standing in the way of quality affordable health care for all.
Says Holt Baker:
Here’s the way we in labor see things—America is in a big fight over health care. The American people are on one side. Big Insurance is on the other side. Only one of us will win. We know if the insurance companies win, we all lose.
Other demonstrations are planned at the headquarters and local offices of Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Wellpoint—including its subsidiary Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Check out our friends at Health Care for America Now (HCAN) to find an event near you. HCAN, the AFL-CIO, the Health Care for America Education Fund (HCAEF) and MoveOn are among the National Day of Action sponsors of events with the theme “Big Insurance: Sick of it!”
