The "death panels" are already here »
Posted By Progressive 3 months, 2 weeks ago in Political Opinion
Sarah Palin thinks health care reform will bring with it “death panels,” collections of bureaucrats who will ration care, deciding whose life is and isn’t worth saving. The flaw in that logic? “That’s not the future of health care—it’s the present,” writes Mike Madden for Salon. According to the AMA, the country's biggest insurance companies denied 2% to 5% of claims last year, often with heartbreaking or outrageous results.
In one case, a 17-year-old girl was denied a liver transplant because she had leukemia, and her insurer, Cigna, determined that the liver transplant wouldn’t save her life. Cigna relented 10 days later, but she died before the operation could be performed. Horror stories like that abound—Madden found five within an hour. “Opponents of reform often skip right past any problems with the current system,” he concludes, “but it’s rife with them.”
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Progressive
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CRYMTYPHON3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Dear Sir/Madam: Your test has come back positive.
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This is not a cause for alarm but we recommend immediate further testing.
Sit down.
I have some bad news.
You condition is treatable but your insurer says it was
a pre-condition and is not coverable.
Dear Sir/Madam: we have reviewed your appeal and find that your
current medical condition was essentialy unsound when you
began your policy, which is therefore discontinued.
To: [employee 12309]
From: Human Resources
Co: notice of termination of employment
Reason: re-current absence from duty.
Dear Sir/Madam:
this is to inform you that your mortgage is 6 months in
arrears. Please consider this your final warning before
forclosure proceedings are initiated. Have a nice day.
"Hey buddy, get a job!"
"You can't sleep there, you idiot."
"Move along, please."
"Yes, 911? I think a homeless person in the alley is sick.
Wait here in the hospital waiting room.
Do you have insurance?
Wait here please.
Wait here please.
Wait here please.
Move along.
911? I think a homeless person in the alley is dead.-
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vor3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Well done CRYMTYPHON!
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Isn't it ironic that they don't won't us to consider what private insurance is doing to people now, rather supposing how a government option would perform?
Republicans hate their own government. Funny that they always leave Defense out of the criticism (the only government function they see as justified). Likely the single most wasteful government branch and where much of the pork and largesse exists.
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bushiesRbonkers3 months, 2 weeks ago
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As I understand the Palinites...
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When the health insurance company that your employer chose for you makes a profit-or-treat choice on your care, that is "freedom." But if a government agency reviews the need for care, that constitutes a "death panel." In the world of the corporate lords and their screaming con serfs, profit constitutes morality.-
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m-simon3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Death Panels in Oregon:
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Of course the difference is that government bureaucrats have guns to enforce their decisions and you have no recourse and no contract due to sovereign immunity.
Here is how it works in Oregon:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2009/08/oregon...
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spkguy3 months, 2 weeks ago
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From another post the other day...
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"You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.
If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is."
http://sobeale.blogspot.com/2009/08/dont-talk-to-m... -
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johnnyt3 months, 2 weeks ago
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while this article has very valid points and if anyone has ever had a family member or friend that has been of poor health they know that the private insurance system can be a mess. that being said i look as medicare and medicaid of my family members i see the same problems. as i try to read through all of the disinformation and bs that is being spewed from both sides i wonder if anything will be fixed. adding another broken health care system to compete with the current broken health care system isnt an answer.
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would it not be better for congress and the president to reform the current system than starting an entirely new system to compete against the current model.-
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Progressive3 months, 2 weeks ago
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"would it not be better for congress and the president to reform the current system than starting an entirely new system to compete against the current model."
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Yes--and that is exactly what they are trying to do--REFORM the existing system.
That's also why there is no single payer system (like those in Europe and Canada) being considered--even though liberals like myself would prefer it to the bill currently proposed. -
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Tasine3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Yes .... and .... no.
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The right thing to happen would be for the federal government to butt completely out of the health care industry where it has no legitimate business. Since they are not about to give up that power over you, then, yes, reform would be far, far superior to confiscating the private industry currently planned. -
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moxxxxxxxxxx3 months, 2 weeks ago
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The problems with medicaid and medicare are due to contracts with private insurance corps to manage care and claims. The government contracts out to private insurance corps to insure and manage care. Take out the thrird party profit (insurance corps) and there wouldn't be a healthcare crisis. Hwo much actual healthcare could be provided for just ONE insurance corp ceos pay check? $40 million dollars is alot of actual care.
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johnnyt3 months, 2 weeks ago
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while this article has very valid points and if anyone has ever had a family member or friend that has been of poor health they know that the private insurance system can be a mess. that being said i look as medicare and medicaid of my family members i see the same problems. as i try to read through all of the disinformation and bs that is being spewed from both sides i wonder if anything will be fixed. adding another broken health care system to compete with the current broken health care system isnt an answer.
Reply
would it not be better for congress and the president to reform the current system than starting an entirely new system to compete against the current model. -
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bubba23 months, 2 weeks ago
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Yes, the so-called "death panels" have been in existence for YEARS, in the bowels of the insurance companies.
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Read what tehranchik posted on this story --
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/08/10/insuranc...
"This is an issue that is close to me right now. My sis has been in the hospital for over a month. Still very ill and unable to take care of herself. She's reached her CAP and losing her coverage on Wednesday. The agent told us it's due to some bean counter sitting behind a desk somewhere."
"This whistleblower talks about his knowledge of 'dumping the ill'. My sis will join the ranks in two days." -
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rbiii3 months, 2 weeks ago
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CRYMTYPHON3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Never fool yourself into believing you can pass off
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talking points to us, rbiii.
We are Americans who have studied the issues,
and are damned more honest with the facts than you or yours.
We want a society where health is not a commercial item sold by cartels.
We want a nation where the choice is not our houses and jobs, or our lives.
We want a community that takes care of its own, because it believes in its own.
Government?
What is that, but the will of the people of America,
organized into a plan to achieve what we dare to want? -
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Goppy3 months, 2 weeks ago
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It WOULD be great if Health Insurers ... as Captains of Industry ...
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would choose the RIGHT path ... and choose to insure ALL Americans ...
even those with pre-existing conditions ...
... and it WOULD be great if Health Insurers ... as Captains of Industry ...
would choose to NOT RESCIND their client's policies if they make a claim ...
... but Modern Republicans REFUSE to allow any constraints be placed on the Insurance Industry.
And we cannot call ourselves Patriotic Americans if we cannot fix a problem as large as the one we have ... such a serious problem ... with massive consequences ... for ALL of us.
The government is the only entity large enough left to fix the problem ... unless Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Joe Scarborough, Annie Coulter, Bill O'Really, Michael Savage, Michele Malkin, and the 100's of similar Right Wing talking heads want to contribute their salaries to fix the problem.
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m-simon3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Government run health care is insurance companies with guns:
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Of course the difference is that government bureaucrats have guns to enforce their decisions and you have no recourse and no contract due to sovereign immunity.
Here is how it works in Oregon:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2009/08/oregon... -
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moxxxxxxxxxx3 months, 2 weeks ago
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I have been in healthcare for 20 years. The insurance corp scam has been going on since the idea of managed care, HMOS started to take over. There was never a collective voice against the damage caused by insurance companies because the end result was often death or worsening of illness and disease. If you are sick or have a family member die because of an insurance corps refuses to pay and places the costs back on the patient and the family the result is guilt. Family members who cannot afford healthcare feel very guilty when their family member dies or suffers because they couldn't afford treatment. And death has its own grief and saddness. This is a very personal problem and people don't want to talk about it. They are too distracted by the grief and saddness of a loved ones death or illness to fight insurance corps. We have finally reached a point where every person in America has experienced the abuse of insurance corps or knows someone who has and they are speaking out. It took 20 years to happen but the collective voice of insurance corp victims is so loud now the game is over for them. They can no longer allow people to die or suffer so they can make profit.
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rbiii3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Do you know who encouraged HMOs to take over?
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I'll give you a hint: The Government when it passed the HMO Act of 1973.
One of those stupid compromises Nixon made with the Democrat Congress.
Isn't it funny how the government is always overstepping its bounds and creating long term problems? Again: WHY do you people want to give the government that kind of power? They don't know what to do with it. They were never meant to have it in the first place. -
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Goppy3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Well said ... check out this interview with Wendell Potter ... former chief spokesman for Cigna ... one of the nation's largest Health Insurers.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story...
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Goppy3 months, 2 weeks ago
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You are an idiot.
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While it's true the drug companies are contributing money to the plan ... they are doing so to protect their rights to charge high prices for drugs.
The Insurance Companies are dumping far more money onto the Legislators ... to protect their right to screw Americans over.
Of course, you don't care about Americans because you are not a patriotic person.
You only care about yourself ... and your paranoia.
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Natureboy3 months, 2 weeks ago
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The fallacy implicit in this whole thing is the idea that death by denial will somehow stop if Baucus' plan is passed into law.
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That reform PRESERVES the role of the private insurers now meting out death by denial.
Don't believe in death by denial? Then work to pass single-payor reform in your state. Obama's bill won't do sh!t to stop bad faith denials by private insurance companies. -
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dxxy4u3 months, 2 weeks ago
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P.T. Barnum Palin(Todd), found out that Sarah(Bailey) can make more money feeding you REP Idiots bull(S)hit, than being Governor. "Never give a sucker an even break", Barnum and Todd's Philosophy . McCain, look what you heaped upon the American people, now you don't want no parts of her.
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