CIGNA, Fidelity Investments and the Reality of the Precarious Nature of Health: Why We Need Reform

For now, this will be my last posting as Paul and I are moving forward with our new non-profit (more on that at the end of this posting).  Over the last few months, I have learned quite a lot and, I hope, I have shed the light of reason and sanity on a few things for you as well, kind readers. 

For instance, how anti-reform protest really has its roots in sponsorship from billionaires who don't worry about how to pay for their health care, how GOP politicians who are supposedly serving their public receive much campaign finance money from health care special interests and how the GOP has offered no reasonable plan for reform.  Like this, this,  this and this.

This blog started as a result of CIGNA's denial of our coverage.  My husband became too ill to work and we thought, rightfully, our disability insurance policy would cover us.  After all, he has Multiple Sclerosis, a chronic disease. Disability insurance, as I have demonstrated, is an enormous corporate scam.  A gigantic money-making scheme for the health insurance industry and one where they have no intention of actually following through on their contractual obligations.

It's cheaper for the health insurance industry (makes Wall Street happy) to let you file an ERISA claim in Federal Court and maybe one of the judges they have in their back pockets will be there to help them find a way not to pay you.

They hope for one of two things, 1. To wear you (the sick person with no income) down to where you give up or;  2. You will settle for less than the amount of the policy.  Either way, they come out ahead and you, the disabled, sick or injured person, come out stepped upon by a large, faceless, inhumane corporation, jobless and without any recourse since insurance is exempt from federal anti-trust laws. You cannot seek assistance from the Federal Trade Commission Consumer Protection agency for example.

Health and disability insurance are not about your health or seeing you get better.  Insurance is about profits. And you, premium-paying consumer, get in the way of that.

Illness happens.  It's the luck of the draw; the throw of the dice in the great genetic crap shoot that is humanity.  We thought we were protected.  After all, we did the right things: had disability insurance, we even purchased extra, special, in-case disability coverage.  My husband worked hard at his new job.  He even worked in a new position at Fidelity Investments all through his chemotherapy treatments.

And while I'm at it with Fidelity, I learned something else.  The management of Fidelity is so insulated from the people who work for them, from their own clients even, and are so paranoid they hire companies like Cyveillance (who use free Google searches as part of their "internet monitoring" and "sophisticated intelligence gathering") a regular visitor to my site, to keep up with what is being said about them on the internet.  My site?  This blog, written by a woman whose husband has Multiple Sclerosis and was forced into signing a separation agreement with Fidelity or allow his health to suffer? I shudder at my own dangerous self.

Fidelity can sponsor a million MS Bike-a-Thons, but their actions with my husband speak volumes about how they really feel about Multiple Sclerosis. Not in my backyard, comes to mind.

Here's an investment tip: Many socially responsible funds do way better than Fidelity funds.  Check them out for yourself.  Start here. Put your money where people count first.

What Paul and I didn't quite grasp, even in the face of CIGNA's denials, was how insurance companies will do absolutely anything to not have to pay their claims.  You really have no idea of this unless you have experienced it yourself.  I would have never believed it myself, it is that surreal.  We are living proof of their unethical and inhumane behavior.  In my blog, I have brought to attention all kinds of claims that CIGNA has refused to pay.  They have a particular habit of not paying disability claims to people with Multiple Sclerosis.

Facing a $1400 per month COBRA payment while unemployed is insane. And that's why Health Care Reform needs to pass now, because we should not be faced with this payment while unemployed nor should we be so scared, as we are, to never have coverage again because with Paul's illness, no private health insurer will ever cover him.  Why?  Having Multiple Sclerosis can be expensive.  Is that a good reason to keep someone from receiving health care, America?

But now it's time for me to do more than just write this blog.

Paul and I have started our own foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) that will, for now, focus on helping all people with Multiple Sclerosis.

It's the Multiple Sclerosis Activism Foundation, and our aim is twofold.  First, we hope to be a resource for questions or issues regarding MS, care, treatments, doctors who specialize in MS or any issue you have that can't be easily answered.  We are here to help you.  And if we don't have the answers, we will get you to where you need to find the answers.  We'll do the work for you.  It's a dizzying maze of information out there and we will act as filters and conduits to the correct answers and sources of information.

Second, we are aiming to affect policy when it comes to people with MS and other chronic, debilitating conditions.  We do not just want to take a "stand" on a position, we want to affect change as well.  And this takes your voices.  Let us know your issues, questions and stories.  We are here to get your voice heard, to help and to make things better for all people with disabilities.

Finally, our Constitution, which has been thrown around by so many of the anti-reform protesters, the GOP and the Hair-Bumped One's fans as their reason for everything that emanates from their mouths, especially anti-health care reform rhetoric, has made me wonder if these people have even read it.  The Preamble clearly states (click on the links for historical context):

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Promote the general Welfare.  That means addressing our national happiness, health and well-being.  It means it's time to get out of the dark ages of serfs (us) and feudal lords (insurance industry) and take over a program that should not have profit as its most basic of motives.

The Foundation's website will be coming shortly.  In the meantime, if you have questions, want your story heard, have a way to help or just want to tell us you are glad we are here, you can reach the MS Activism Foundation at (310) 363-0197.

Fight for Health Care Reform, it's a right you deserve as a citizen of these United States.

I Hope Fidelity is Getting Their Money's Worth--Geesh

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Social Security and Medicare and the Socialist/Communist/Fascist/Marxist Presidencies of Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson

President Johnson signing the Medicare program into law.

As Social Security and Medicare, two very important programs for our national well-being (see the preamble to the Constitution), were being introduced as bills, they were treated with the same revile and unsound arguments against them as Health Care Reform is being treated today.  

Below is beginning text from the Social Security Act signed into law August 14, 1935 by President Roosevelt.

An Act

To provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.

Here are the same arguments AGAINST the Social Security Act that are going on today about Health Care Reform.

The resulting Senate and House bills encountered opposition from those who considered it a governmental invasion of the private sphere and from those who sought exemption from payroll taxes for employers who adopted government-approved pension plans.

Yes, that argument  "governmental invasion of the private sphere," was all over the place in 1934-35.  Can you imagine the uproar seniors and others who receive these benefits of this "government invasion" if Social Security and Medicare were suddenly taken away?  Can you then imagine the lines for food assistance programs then doubling after benefits were revoked?  Of the indignity of having to seek out assistance and charity at an elderly age when you have been a good citizen and paid your taxes, maybe even served in our Armed Forces?  At any age for that matter, in this, the richest nation in the world.

Health care reform has been tossed about our national psyche for a while now.  In 1945, President Truman wanted to enact a National Health Care Plan.  For the full text of President Truman's message to Congress see here.

In his message, Truman argued that the federal government should play a role in health care, saying "The health of American children, like their education, should be recognized as a definite public responsibility." One of the chief aims of President Truman's plan was to insure that all communities, regardless of their size or income level, had access to doctors and hospitals.

And,

The most controversial aspect of the plan was the proposed national health insurance plan. In his November 19, 1945 address, President Truman called for the creation of a national health insurance fund to be run by the federal government. This fund would be open to all Americans, but would remain optional.

An optional plan?  How did that go over with the special interests?

The American Medical Association (AMA) launched a spirited attack against the bill, capitalizing on fears of Communism in the public mind. The AMA characterized the bill as "socialized medicine", and in a forerunner to the rhetoric of the McCarthy era, called Truman White House staffers "followers of the Moscow party line."

Socialism and Communism, sound familiar?  See Tea Baggers of today for all kinds of mixed ideological name-calling. President Obama is everything from a Fascist, Marxist, Socialist to Communist--did I leave any "ists" out?

The Medicare Act was signed into law by President Johnson, July 30, 1965.  The full text of President Johnson's speech here. President Truman, who was there to witness the signing was the first man to sign into the Medicare Program had this to say;

This is an important hour for the Nation, for those of our citizens who have completed their tour of duty and have moved to the sidelines. These are the days that we are trying to celebrate for them. These people are our prideful responsibility and they are entitled, among other benefits, to the best medical protection available. Not one of these, our citizens, should ever be abandoned to the indignity of charity. Charity is indignity when you have to have it. But we don't want these people to have anything to do with charity and we don't want them to have any idea of hopeless despair.

And,

Mr. President, I am glad to have lived this long and to witness today the signing of the Medicare bill which puts this Nation right where it needs to be, to be right.

With the same arguments being flung all over the place as the ones that were being used today, one has to question where these arguments really come from?  From the Tea Baggers themselves who are calling President Obama a Fascist/Socialist/Marxist just like their counter-parts did to Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson?  Well, we've certainly had a lot of Communists/Socialists elected to the White House then, and imagine, ones who did things like sign Social Security and Medicare into law?  The horror!

Or do these arguments against a National Health Plan or at the very least, a Public Option, come from private insurers who have fought so hard to keep their money train rolling ahead at full speed at the expense of all ill Americans?  More information about the Social Security Amendment for the Medicare Act here.

Private insurers had long considered this illness-prone population a "bad risk.” A broad debate about the need for a social insurance program to provide older Americans with reliable health care coverage started within the Social Security Administration and in Congress. Public hearings were held, and the House of Representatives considered several proposals, but the debate did notintensify until 1960, when it became clear that private insurers were becoming increasingly incapable of providing comprehensive, affordable health care coverage to the rapidly growing population of older adults.

This time, let's not allow a handful of corporate rapists such as CIGNA, Aetna, WellPoint, UnitedHealth and all the others, the upper hand on how we, as a nation, look after our general well-being.  Stand up for reform.  It's in your best interests to look at our past, learn from it and see that all the vile rhetoric around Health Care Reform is as hollow and shallow as the people who speak it.