What happened to us should not happen to anyone in this country of ours, especially to a man with an incurable and debilitating disease. It's why we've started the MS Activism Foundation, a 501(c)(3)--because we can't wait for a cure.
MS Activism.org or reach me at margaret@msactivism.org.
Recent Posts
Friday, July 2, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
The Health Reform Bill has Passed, RIP Bad Health Insurance Practices--Maybe...
RIP members of the GOP who cemented their fate by this shameful display of hatred and loathing to those very Americans they were elected to serve. Give up your federally-financed health insurance if our government is such a horrible disease to the health and care of our nation. Give up you federally financed pension as well.
Go ahead, try repealing the health reform bill, try rolling us back to abuses we have suffered as premium-paying customers; parents and children whose policies are rescinded because they got sick, women with breast cancer left to die because their insurer did not want to pay, sick children like Kyler Van Nocker whose insurer, Coventry, won't pay for his cancer treatment, Americans with chronic conditions unable to find any policy, let alone an affordable one, that will pay for their medications.
Try. And see how utterly inconsequential you are to the very fabric of our society. You are the patsies of your corporate overlords as you wait lustfully for your campaign coffers to be filled with money, the only intent of which is to purchase your influence. Shame on all of you who fought against reform. Shame.
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Only Certainty in the Fight for Health Reform
If you are an insurance executive making your living (and stock options) by denying claims.
If you are the claimant who has just been denied.
Maybe you are one of the people who protested against reform, maybe you protested for it.
Maybe you receive Medicare and don't realize it's a government-run insurance program but you feel very strongly against a government reform of health insurance.
Whoever you are, from the former CEO of CIGNA, H. Edward Hanway to the countless people with and without the ability to get affordable health care--Death will find all of us, one way or another.
And we can either treat it and ourselves with dignity or we can keep allowing ourselves to be lorded over and hounded into our graves by an uncaring, profit-driven system.
And because of that, I ask myself and I ask you all: What side of this moment in history do you want to be on?
The side that helps Death along, helps it find us all sooner and with more suffering because we are without affordable care and treatments? Want to be on the side that denies a 5-year old boy his cancer treatment, like HealthAmerica (part of Coventry) did to Kyler Van Nocker? The side that believes the lies paid for by billionaires like the Koch Brothers?
Coventry Health Care, parent company of HealthAmerica, which is denying Kyler Van Nocker's $110,000 claim for life-saving neuroblastoma treatment, is in extra super-duper financial shape these days.
The Dow Jones Newswires reports today that Coventry's fourth-quarter earnings rose 24%, beating profit expectations, as overall membership rose while medical costs fell.
"Coventry's medical-loss ratio, or the percentage of premium revenue used to pay patient bills, declined [to] 83.2% from 83.8% a year earlier and 84.4% in the prior quarter," notes Dow.
This has helped boost Coventry's profits to $109.1 million, or 74 cents a share, up from $88.2 million, or 60 cents, a year earlier. Revenue increased 15% to $3.43 billion as premium revenue rose 17%.
Or do you want to be on the compassionate side that wants this nation to have a Universal Health Plan like every other industrialized nation in this world? That wants to limit pain and the indignation of dying from something that could have been easily prevented and treated?
Death finds every single one of us no matter who we are and that is the one certainty of life. From billionaire to the homeless, it finds us all.
I want to be on the compassionate side. I want it to be said that I fought for the health of my fellow citizens because it was the right, moral, just and compassionate thing to do.
It's with this posting (and admittedly some disgust on my part with what I see going on out there, Beck et al) that I, really and truly, say goodbye. I'm done. Let the over-paid talking head idiots like Rush and Herr Beck chatter away. They have chosen their side and it's the wrong one.
Peace and good health and may reform come to this nation because if we are to retain any of our ability to compete globally, we need it.
And Liz Cheney, shut-up and go home.
Image above found here.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
How a Texas Dentist Explains Why we Have to Fight for Health Insurance Reform
I think this one man's efforts to push his agenda of what he "thinks" is correct history, science and politics into the public school textbooks of Texas (and a lot of other states since Texas is used as a standard) is a microcosm for what ails this country and why he have to fight so hard for a common-sense and fair health care delivery system.
If you compare Dr. McLeroy's ideals about what he thinks capitalism is, the strange notion that free-market systems are pure, Christian, American and perfect; these ideas are similar to every Tea Bagger protester out there still railing against reforming the very broken system we have in place now.
He is entitled to his beliefs but not to push them on everyone else, especially since he admits freely to not knowing much about history. If Dr. McLeroy just used that energy for something truly beneficial, think what he could accomplish. As it is now, he just wants to take us all back to the Dark Ages, before carbon dating and dinosaur fossils. Sigh.
Dr. McLeroy and staunch anti-health reform Congressperson, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, share a lot of the same views. Here's a sample of Dr. McLeroy's views:
“I consider myself a Christian fundamentalist,” he announced almost as soon as we sat down. He also identifies himself as a young-earth creationist who believes that the earth was created in six days, as the book of Genesis has it, less than 10,000 years ago...The men who wrote the Constitution were Christians who knew the Bible. Our idea of individual rights comes from the Bible. The Western development of the free-market system owes a lot to biblical principles.”
"The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation. But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan--he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes."Over objections by experts in 2004, McLeroy voted to approve health textbooks that stress "abstinence-only" in regard to instruction about pregnancy and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.[16] (as a note here, Texas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation so maybe it's time they stopped talking about not doing it and figured out how to prevent the pregnancy since teens are going to do it anyway.)
Dr. McLeroy believes that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. 'I believe a lot of incredible things,' he said, 'The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.'”[20
"What good does it do to put a Chinese story in an English book?" he said. "So you really don't want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them."[24] He later apologized.[25]
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
How the Health Insurance Industry Became Greedy
As Robert Cunningham and Robert Cunningham Jr. recount in their 1997 book, The Blues, those early Blue Cross plans had several defining characteristics. Among them were the twin principles of “guaranteed issue” and “community rating.” The plans would sell insurance to anybody who wanted to buy it. And they would charge the same premium to every person, regardless of the person’s medical condition. The plans did this because they were non-profits, designed not to earn money for shareholders but to insure a steady supply of paying patients for the hospitals. (It was the hospitals, who were struggling to pay their own bills during the Great Depression, that established the plans.)
What enabled the Blue Cross plans to succeed was their effective monopoly on the health insurance business. They had a huge, diverse base of customers--one based heavily on large groups of employees, like the Dallas schoolteachers--which meant they had sound finances. The majority of people were relatively healthy, with few medical bills. Their accumulated premiums were sufficient to cover the bills for that small group of people who, because of accident or disease, had much higher bills.
But as enrollment in the Blue Cross plans swelled, the commercial insurance industry took notice--and saw an opportunity. If Blue Cross was selling to everybody and charging everybody the same rate, that meant some people--healthy people--were effectively paying a bit extra in order to subsidize the sick. The commercial insurers figured that if they could target just the healthier customers, by charging higher premiums or refusing coverage to people with medical problems, they could offer lower premiums to these people and still make a profit.
They were correct. And the effect on Blue Cross was devastating. Over time, Blue Cross plans lost more and more healthy customers, leaving a pool of beneficiaries in relatively worse health. In order to finance their medical bills, Blue Cross had to raise everybody’s premiums. With each increase, more and more healthy people fled for cheaper plans, creating a vicious cycle. Eventually, the Blues faced a choice: Start acting like the commercial insurers, in order to compete, or go out of business. They chose the former.
Soon Blue Cross plans were screening potential customers, charging them higher premiums or no coverage if they came with pre-existing conditions. Eventually, some of the plans converted outright to for-profit entities.
Eleven Ugly Truths About Health and the Health Insurance Industry in Our Country
1. Human beings can and do get sick. Some more sick than others. These are simple facts of life.
2. We are at the mercy of our health insurance company to get our health care paid for; from doctors' visits to medicines to hospital stays, without their prior consent we cannot get our care.
3. If you are employed, both you and your employer pay for your policies. Sometimes you have both a health and a disability policy through your employer.
4. Paying your premiums absolutely does not guarantee that the insurance company will uphold their end of the contract (purposely written in vague language) and pay out a claim.
5. Your health insurance company can dump you at any time. This practice is called rescission.
6. Your health insurance company can raise your premiums at any time, and hikes in premiums have outpaced wages and inflation. If you are self-employed and cannot afford a rate hike on your policy, you lose your coverage. This practice is called purging. You may still make too much money to qualify for government help, in which case you are simply out-of-luck and health care.
7. Profits are the only motivating factor for an insurance company. Money is made by the company when they deny a claim, such as I have documented on this blog, or when they delay in paying a claim.
8. We are the only industrialized nation in the world without a National Plan to ensure the health and well-being of our people, to give us the ability to build enterprises and our own wealth because we are chained to any "job" just so we can get some form of health insurance.
9. The insurance industry is immune to federal anti-trust regulations making things like collusion and price fixing, practices they can and do employ. Sometimes they get caught, most times they do not, thanks to their immunity from these laws. See the McCarran Ferguson Act of 1945 for more information.
10. Over 45,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. Why does this matter? Because the health insurance industry is the gate-keeper to our medical care. We should be able to go see a doctor or receive treatment without fear of losing our retirement funds or our homes or having to declare bankruptcy, but we cannot because we are all (from consumer to provider) slaves to an industry whose only motivation is to secure profits for their shareholders.
11. Health care costs are out of control, thanks in huge part to the health insurance industry. The blame rests squarely with the insurers as they are not only the gate-keepers to our care, they are also the gate-keepers to reimbursing doctors, hospitals and pharmacies. Deals are struck with all the providers, but only after the insurance profit margins are in place.
Finally, if being in the insurance business is so risky and expensive, as Ms. Angela Braly of WellPoint stated before Congress on February 24 of this year, then why do WellPoint, CIGNA, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and Humana stay in the business? Why not close up shop and forget it?
Why bother with such a risky and expensive undertaking as collecting billions in premiums? If the profit margins are so low, as they claim, why bother spending the countless millions of dollars in lobbying fees to keep everything the same as it is now? Why do they purchase corporate jets, have vast real estate holdings and give their executives such generous compensation packages if the business is just so hard to keep profitable? Why keep at it?
Because the business model of collecting ever-rising premiums for doing absolutely nothing is an extremely lucrative one and they all make an immorally obscene amount of money from infirmity, from the sick and the dying in this country of ours. That is a very ugly truth.
The image above was found here.
Monday, March 8, 2010
America Goes Uninsured While Congress Fiddles--and Gets Lifetime Health Insurance On Us!
And the best example of this is the way our dear public servants, especially the ones against any sort of health insurance reform, get treated when they retire. All on us! And look, they don't have to pay premium increases on their insurance--why? Because we pick up the tab for them.
Uncle Sam will continue federal employee's health benefits, as long as you were enrolled in the program for the last five years, however you must pay the same monthly amount that you paid while working.And health insurance benefits aren't all. They get a nice pension as well--after a mere 5 years of service! Yes, thanks to us.
My fellow citizens, our public servants get a great deal of a ride into their retirement, which is why they campaign so furiously--it isn't about serving the public, it's about serving themselves so they can chalk up the pension dollars.
What I find really galling about the whole mess, besides the obvious selfishness inherent in their voting behavior, is how the National Taxpayers Union grades these same nay-sayers as being friendly or "good" to us taxpayers. But they don't see the ridiculousness in having us pay for their, sometimes, multi-million dollar pensions and for a lifetime of health insurance benefits--all while denying us access to a single payer system? Also, Steve Forbes is on their Board. When's the last time he saw a payroll deduction on his paystub? Like he gets a paystub?
Call your public servants, tell them "Hey, get off the payroll and give up your pension, the one we pay for, or give us all your great, government subsidized health insurance plan." Here's the link, you can email it to them to remind them of their sweet, and hypocritical, deal. http://www.opm.gov/INSURE/HEALTH/
Entire Congressional retirement package PDF here. From this PDF, I leave you with this. Please note how public outrage made it all go away before.
The Civil Service Retirement Act of 1920 (P.L. 66-215) established a pension system for federal employees in the executive branch of government. Coverage under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) was extended to Congress in January 1942 by P.L. 77-411. That law was repealed just two months later in response to adverse public opinion. In 1946, P.L. 79-601 again extended CSRS coverage to Congress, at the option of Members, with higher contributions and greater benefits than those applicable to regular federal employees. In reference to that legislation, S.Rept. 79-1400 (May 31, 1946) stated that a retirement plan for Congress:
would contribute to independence of thought and action, [be] an inducement for retirement for those of retiring age or with other infirmities, [and] bring into the legislative service a larger number of younger Members with fresh energy and new viewpoints concerning the economic, social, and political problems of the Nation.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
A Libertarian and Law Professor's Point of View of Health Care Reform
Equipped with my trustworthy computer, fiber-optic internet account and dogged determination for knowledge, I Googled Richard A. Epstein and I found out he's a very distinguished professor of law and now he's at the NYU School of Law. (I went to NYU, but not the Law School part)
He's staged his Libertarian argument in this article on the idea that enough competition to the big guys already exists within the health insurance arena. The big guys are WellPoint, Aetna, CIGNA, United and the Blues.
Right now a multitude of small firms coexist with such huge operations as Aetna, Blue Cross/Blue-Shield, Cigna, United HealthCare, and WellPoint. But does this medley of firms suffice? In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Robert Reich, a former Secretary of Labor, suggests that the answer is no.Professor Epstein insists competition from a public entity, as Mr. Reich suggests, won't work.
He quotes Mrs. Reich's article from the WSJ, where Reich says, "Without government as competition, the private sector has little incentive to improve."
What is Professor Epstein's rebuttal?
The claim is a simple economic blunder. The private sector is not some monolithic entity. If it tried to behave as such, its members would be on the antitrust chopping block for engaging in horizontal price fixing. Instead, these large players compete flat out in all market segments. What, then, will one new player do to the overall level of competition?Let's start with "its members would be on the antitrust chopping block for engaging in horizontal price fixing." If you know anything about how insurance works, as I am sure Professor Epstein does, you know this: It is immune to federal anti-trust laws due to the McCarran Ferguson Act of 1945:
It is fair to say that the McCarran-Ferguson Act antitrust exemption is very expansive with regard to anything that can be said to fall within "the business of insurance," including premium pricing and market allocations. As a result, "the most egregiously anticompetitive claims, such as naked agreements fixing price or reducing coverage, are virtually always found immune."(6)What then, is Professor Epstein going on about in his article. Is the professor not aware of the law already in place that keeps the anti-trust regulators away? (highly doubtful) Or, is he writing to an audience of people who only want to hear one thing? Who want some affirmation that profiting from the sick and dying is okay. Those who think they can't get sick and who believe the market knows best. What's that saying about the Forbes.com readership?
If you are educated about health insurance practices you also know that as a consumer you have little substantive recourse if your health insurance company doesn't want to pay your claim or denies your disability or causes suffering or kills you. And that's because of ERISA or the Employee Retirement Income and Security Act of 1974.
In the case of employee health benefits, you are covered by the federal courts because employee health benefits plans fall under ERISA. However, ERISA is written in favor of the plan and not you, the disabled person with say, Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. A good attorney-written blog on all things ERISA here.
Professor Epstein goes on to say this:
Worst of all, no government entity ever operates on a level playing field. A government's dual capacity as regulating and regulated party creates a nonstop risk of bias, either by inadvertence or design. What private firm will sue a government corporation for unfair trade practices if they know that the Justice Department, Congress, the Federal Trade Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission can investigate them? Who wants to litigate an unfair competition case, no matter how solid, and go head to head with a government firm that always has home court advantage? And who wants to compete economically against a firm whose thousand disguised government subsidies allow it to undercut competition?As it is now, there is no level playing field the way private insurance works. As a premium paying consumer, you cannot go to the Federal Trade Commission for help. Period. So that point is well, pointless. McCarrran Ferguson again is why you cannot seek reprieve from the FTC.
As far as litigation, I urge Professor Epstein to click on the link above in the upper left hand corner of this blog and tell me what's fair when it comes to ERISA litigation when 21 Federal Judges go booze it up at the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel with insurance companies, big pharma and benefits plans general counsels to discuss defending against ERISA claims. I urge the professor to explain the fairness of ERISA, in general, to claimants.
And Professor Epstein asks "who does want to compete against a firm whose thousand disguised government subsidies allow it to undercut competition?"
I'll tell you who, the people of this country, people like my family who are sick to death of the parasitic practices of the private health insurance monopoly we are chained to for life and blood. Literally.
Health care cannot be about the market and competition because of the importance of life, of trying to meet death with dignity and compassion and all the subtleties in between; of the mother of two small children who is dying of breast cancer yet denied her pain medications, of a 5-year old boy trying to see yet another day of his new world yet denied the one treatment that may allow him to see his 6th year, of the woman with lung cancer who had it hidden from her--and why? Profits, the market, the bottom line.
I'll leave you with Professor Epstein's parting words in the article. Don't know what to make of it. I say we are already at disastrous.
The critics who treat the public health care plan as a Trojan horse for a single-payer health care plan have a real point. All libertarians know that private monopolies are problematic--and that state-run monopolies always prove disastrous.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Oh! The Money CIGNA (and other insurance companies) Spend on Lobbying.
Health Dialog, Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, CIGNA's Revolving Door and Why Your Health Care is Now One Word, Part I
Once, sometime in the not-too-distant past, health care was spelled with two words. Then along came some shiny suited corporate marketer, fresh from B-School, full of some ideals, who blended those two words into one, and thereby cemented the hold on health and care in our nation into the hands of The Corporation.
Trademarked and proprietary, thank you very much.
Health care used to be about you and your doctor trying to keep you healthy with your regular check-ups or trying to figure out how to heal what was wrong with you. Remember that quaint notion? Remember when pharmaceuticals weren't allowed to advertise on TV? Oh, the day. Now, I'm all for dissemination of information, but seriously, we've become one hell of a pandered-to nation. The Ambien ad makes me laugh every single time I see it. "Sleepwalking, and eating or driving while not fully awake, with memory loss for the event, as well as abnormal behaviors such as being more outgoing or aggressive than normal, confusion, agitation, and hallucinations may occur."
Our health care has been so grossly intruded upon by so many people trying to get their fair-share, piece of the American health care pie, that we are left with a mockery of what health care is supposed to be about. Your doctor is just one small step up from you on this ladder--and you and I, the sick person, the consumer, we're on the bottom rung.
It's such a wasteful system that it spawns all sort of ways for companies to figure out how to make money from all that waste--a way to grab a piece of that pie. How big a piece? Let's look at one company making a play for the pie, Health Dialog.
Here's an excerpt of an interview at HealthCareEuropa.com with Chris Coloian (formerly of CIGNA) now of Health Dialog. And CIGNA is now a Health Dialog customer! Works out nicely, doesn't it? Full interview here.
We talk to Chris Coloian, Senior Vice President Health Services at Health Dialog, a US population health and health improvement company owned by UK healthcare insurer BUPA. Chris is the former vice president of health advocacy at CIGNA Healthcare, where he provided strategic, product, and marketing direction for the company’s portfolio of care management and health coaching programs.
HCE: How do you see the European market for chronic disease management programmes growing over the next few years?
CC: Very fast, maybe doubling in the next few years. I see no reason why in 2-3 years it shouldn’t be 20-25% of the US market, which today is around $2.5bn and growing at 10-15% a year.
HCE: Why this very fast growth?
CC: I think European policymakers, like our own president, really 'get it'.
HCE: Hmm, I hear mixed reports. In the USA, where people stay with insurers for 4-5 years, I’ve heard that chronic disease management programmes make sense, as they effectively reduce the acute care that an individual will need over that limited time period.
But people in Europe tell me that it is different for healthcare payors like UK primary care trusts, who will be paying out until the person dies. In those circumstances, do these programmes really deliver savings?
CC: To understand the full impact on society, one has to look past medical costs and consider productivity and contributions, such as increased tax revenue. You may extend someone’s life by, say, 2-5 years, but you will also have a much more healthy individual, who will be able to contribute more.
The studies I have seen show that this productivity bonus far outweighs any extra costs. And the cost of the extra few years is not very great anyhow, as most of the costs for any individual are incurred in the last six months of life. I think European policymakers and politicians understand this.
Where to begin. Let's start with the fact that Chris is talking about growth in the European market--growth off which his company can feed in the chronic disease management arena because European policymakers "get it." What do they get? That integrated care is the future. I did not know our President "got that" because we can't even get a Public Option let alone a National Plan. So, who's going to pay for this integrated care of the future? You and I will via our premiums--so that we can help our insurance companies cut costs. Make sense? Think bottom rung.
From the International Journal of Integrated Care.
Yes, yet another way to grab a piece of the Health Care Pie--commercial Disease Management Programs like what Health Dialog peddles, you know, Health Coaching and the like. Go to their website, it's a prime example of some really awful corporate writing.
Our predictive models deliver individual-level information that predicts (don't predictive models already predict?) financial risk and provides insights into the impactibility or readiness of each individual to become engaged in the healthcare process. By incorporating this concept of impactibility we identify those who can most benefit from Health Coaching or other care management programs within a specific time frame, and then match intervention to need.Psst, Health Dialog, impactibility isn't a word.
And the interviewer asks why the European market should grow like the U.S because here, we use the predominant employer-based insurance system and on average, we change jobs every 4-5 years, thus change insurance. So the programs here reduce acute care costs over that limited time period--but for who? Insurance companies and our employers who have to pay into our insurance.
While I am all for reducing the need for acute care, what is the price for reducing this need? Because as you know, we don't have a great track record here in the U.S for taking care of our sick people--even the ones with insurance. 30% of all claims were denied in the state of California just within the first 6 months of 2009. 30%! That reduces acute care all right.
And don't you just love being thought of as a contributor to "tax revenue?" Thanks, Chris. Really puts the human in your humane thought.
And the only reason I stumbled upon Health Dialog and companies of their ilk was due to my research and personal interest into Ms. Abigail Johnson of Fidelity Investments. I was trying to figure out where she stood on health and care in our country. What I found besides Ms. Johnson's campaign contributions, was her husband, Mr. Chris McKown. He's one of the founders of Health Dialog. From the Health Dialog website:
"To directly address unwarranted variation in healthcare" (one word). What's all that mean? Part 2 tomorrow.Health Dialog is a leading provider of care management and analytic services and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bupa, a global provider of healthcare services.Health Dialog Services Corporation (Health Dialog) was founded by George Bennett and Chris McKown in 1997. The company was built in collaboration with the not-for-profit Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making (FIMDM) to directly address unwarranted variation in healthcare. The firm provides sophisticated analytics that drive actionable and measurable solutions for your population, including care management programs and provider measurement services.
Monday, February 22, 2010
How we Bear the Burden of Paying Their Taxes and the Health Insurance Industry Still Denies Our Claims
Most people who come to this blog don't know that the insurance industry is immune to federal anti-trust laws because of something called the McCarran Ferguson Act of 1945. Most people can't conceive that the company they pay premiums to, for health care or for disability, would do anything to not have to pay a claim. Like Coventry denying a 5-year old boy, Kyler Van Nocker, his cancer treatment. Or CIGNA denying a 6-year old girl hearing implants or denying that Jo Joshua Godfrey had cancer let alone treating her for it.
And why deny life-saving treatments or deny a child the ability to hear? Well, because of profits, that's why. Profits have to be made and paying for treatments takes away from profits. And how are we bearing the burden of their taxes?
With the industry's practices involving their executives' pay. Let's look at an excerpt from a story from Reuters below taken from 2008, link embedded. United's CEO is now Stephen Hemsley. Interesting story here about a class action lawsuit (now settled) for back dating of stock options--former CEO McGuire was charged with fraud.
The biggest loss comes from a "stock option accounting double standard" that allows corporations paying executives stock options to deduct more than their actual expenses, they said. For example, when UnitedHealth Group Inc paid CEO William McGuire 9 million stock options, it put on its financial statement that the compensation cost the company nothing, according to the Institute for Policy Studies and the group United for a Fair Economy. But it claimed a tax deduction of $317.7 million, the groups said.
United claimed a $317.7 million tax deduction. Wow.
Here is another study done by Global Subsidies Initiative. Link to full report here. Who Global Subsidies Initiative is, here.
US taxpayers provide 20 billion dollars in subsidies for executive salaries according to report
Taxpayers in the United States are subsidizing the salaries of country's top business executives to the tune of US$ 20 billion a year, according to a report by the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).
The report "Executive Excess 2008: How Average Taxpayers Subsidize Runaway Pay," presents the result of IPS' 15th Annual CEO Compensation Survey, which highlights five major tax and accounting loopholes it argued were directing taxpayer dollars to fund excessive executive pay.
The largest of these tax loopholes, the so-called stock option accounting double standard, cost taxpayers US$ 10 billion last year, according to IPS. The tax rule allows companies to account for stock option expenses on their financial sheets when they grant the options, but then claim the tax deduction when the CEO actually cashes out the options, often years later when their worth has usually increased. The result is tax deductions that are much higher than the original expenses.
Another major loophole is the unlimited tax deductibility of executive pay, which allows companies to deduct executive pay from their income taxes as a business expense so long as the pay is ‘reasonable'. The IRS has failed to define reasonable, and a 1993 attempt by then President Clinton to cap these deductions at US$ 1 million failed.
Senators Levin and McCain introduced a bill to amend the Internal Revenue code to stop all this,
S.1491 - Ending Excessive Corporate Deductions for Stock Options Act.
And what has happened to that bill? Business as usual. It sits. And you and I, who do pay our taxes and our insurance premiums, what do we have to show for it?
We are chained to an industry that preys upon the sick and dying for profitability, an industry that denies a man with Progressive Multiple Sclerosis his disability benefits, an industry who regularly kicks sick people off their policies, who looks at acne and rape as a pre-existing conditions for which to deny life-saving treatments and an industry that doesn't pay its fair share of taxes. They burden us, America.
We need a single payer system. There is still time to be heard, I urge you all to please call your members of Congress and explain to them that the health insurance industry has served up too many abuses, rate hikes and denials to really be in the "Health Care" business.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Here's the Reality We Live In, Now Let's Change It--You Do That by Voting
After MetLife rejected Glenn’s claim, asserting that she was still physically capable of performing full-time sedentary work, Glenn brought suit against the insurance company under ERISA, which authorizes federal courts to review the decisions of benefit plan administrators. Glenn lost her case in district court but prevailed before the Sixth Circuit. In concluding that MetLife had abused its discretion in denying Glenn’s claim, the court of appeals relied on what it regarded as several key factors. For example, although Glenn had qualified for permanent Social Security disability benefits, MetLife ignored the findings of the Social Security Administration in deciding to deny her claim. The company also disregarded certain medical reports that supported Glenn’s claim, withheld some of those reports from the expert hired to review Glenn’s medical files, and failed to address evidence that job-related stress of any kind exacerbated Glenn’s illness. These factors, plus the existence of MetLife’s conflict of interest, convinced the Sixth Circuit that the claim denial was unreasonable and should be reversed.We the People, can do something about this. It's called civic action. You are responsible for who represents you, well, you were until the Supreme Court Decision that just got handed down, but we still have a voice. It may not be a well-funded corporate voice, but we can still bug the hell out of our Congresswomen/men by calling, writing and letting them know health care reform must take place in this nation.
We can fund unnecessary wars but we cannot reinvest in our national health and well-being? I think we can and you must tell your representatives that.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Welcome to the Blog, Coventry Health Care, Denier of Kyler Van Nocker's Cancer Treatment
Coventry is the parent company for HealthAmerica who denied 5-year old Kyler Van Nocker his cancer treatment because it was considered "experimental," rather it was too expensive and they did not want to pay.
Coventry Health Care (208.66.124.31)
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
WellPoint Cancels Investors' Day and Californians are Still Facing 39% Rate Hikes
Shares of WellPoint fell to $57.67 and I say, good. Trading in the shares of a company that deals in the health, life and death of human beings sickens me. How many individuals and institutions make money from denying claims to sick Americans--like HealthAmerica (part of Coventry) denying 5-year old Kyler Van Nocker his cancer treatment? The health insurance industry is a dinosaur, set for extinction because their time on this earth has come to an end.
This is taken directly from the Wall Street Journal.
By Russ BrittA congressional hearing into WellPoint Inc.'s (WLP) proposed rate increases in California has prompted the health insurer to cancel its investor day, taking a bite not only out of its shares but those of other carriers as well.
Shares of WellPoint traded off nearly 3% to $57.67 in recent action, on the heels of the insurer's disclosure that its investor day, scheduled for Feb. 23, would be cancelled.
The news seemed to put a chill on all insurers, with virtually all of them in the red by a percentage point or more despite the broader equity market's gains.
The company said in a press release that the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations has requested information on premiums it planned to charge in California. WellPoint's Anthem Blue Cross of California plans to raise premiums on individual health plans by up to 39%.
The panel also is asking that a senior WellPoint officer appear before the subcommittee at the Feb. 24 hearing.
"The investor-day program was canceled in order to allow the company to prepare appropriately for the hearing," WellPoint's press release said. "The company is confident that its rates were established consistent with actuarial principles and state law, and welcomes the opportunity to discuss the underlying rise in health costs and actuarial dynamics."
Anthem was supposed to impose the rate increase by March 1 but, amid continuing controversy over the raise, it has decided to postpone it until May 1.
WellPoint said management would review its 2010 financial outlook during a conference call on March 17. The company said it still expects net income for the year to hit at least $6 a share.
Analysts polled by FactSet Research are forecasting the company will post earnings of $6.10 a share, while a ThomsonOne estimate calls for WellPoint to earn $6.12.
Among major insurers, UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) was off 1.7%, Aetna Inc. (AET) lost 1.4%, Cigna Inc. (CI) dropped 1.3% and Humana Inc. (HUM) was down 1%.
-By Russ Britt; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com
