Today in Salon.com
The "death panels" are already here
Sorry, Sarah Palin -- rationing of care? Private companies are already doing it, with sometimes fatal results
Gives us a grim picture of what is going on behind the scenes in the healthcare insurance industry.
Opponents of reform often seem to skip right past any problems with the current system -- but it's rife with them. A study by the American Medical Association found the biggest insurance companies in the country denied between 2 and 5 percent of claims put in by doctors last year (though the AMA noted that not all the denials were improper). There is no national database of insurance claim denials, though, because private insurance companies aren't required to disclose such stats. Meanwhile, a House Energy and Commerce Committee report in June found that just three insurance companies kicked at least 20,000 people off their rolls between 2003 and 2007 for such reasons as typos on their application paperwork, a preexisting condition or a family member's medical history. People who buy insurance under individual policies, about 6 percent of adults, may be especially vulnerable, but the 63 percent of adults covered by employer-provided insurance aren't immune to difficulty.
Mike Madden shares a few of folk's healthcare horror stories. It took their staff less than one hour to research the cases below.
Die, baby, die.
The future of healthcare in America, according to Sarah Palin, might look something like this: A sick 17-year-old girl needs a liver transplant. Doctors find an available organ, and they're ready to operate, but the bureaucracy -- or as Palin would put it, the "death panel" -- steps in and says it won't pay for the surgery. Despite protests from the girl's family and her doctors, the heartless hacks hold their ground for a critical 10 days. Eventually, under massive public pressure, they relent -- but the patient dies before the operation can proceed.
Ever had acne? Off to the gallows you go!
-- In June 2008, Robin Beaton, a retired nurse from Waxahachie, Texas, found out she had breast cancer and needed a double mastectomy. Two days before her surgery, her insurance company, Blue Cross, flagged her chart and told the hospital they wouldn't allow the procedure to go forward until they finished an examination of five years of her medical history -- which could take three months. It turned out that a month before the cancer diagnosis, Beaton had gone to a dermatologist for acne treatment, and Blue Cross incorrectly interpreted a word on her chart to mean that the acne was precancerous.
Let babies suffer. Bilk taxpayers. Break families.
David Denney was less than a year old when he was diagnosed in 1995 with glutaric acidemia Type 1, a rare blood disorder that left him severely brain damaged and unable to eat, walk or speak without assistance. For more than a decade, Blue Cross of California -- his parents' insurance company -- paid the $1,200 weekly cost to have a nurse care for him, giving him exercise and administering anti-seizure medication.
But in March 2006, Blue Cross told the Denney family their claims had exceeded the annual cost limit for his care. When they wrote back, objecting and pointing out that their annual limit was higher, the company changed its mind -- about the reason for the denial. The nurse's services weren't medically necessary, the insurers said. His family sued, and the case went to arbitration, as their policy allowed. California taxpayers, meanwhile, got stuck with the bill -- after years of paying their own premiums, the Denney family went on Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid system.
Writhe in agonizing pain. It's not our problem.
In October 2008, Michael Napientak, a doorman from Clarendon Hills, Ill., went to the hospital for surgery to relieve agonizing back pain. His wife's employer's insurance provider, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthCare, had issued a pre-authorization for the operation. The operation went well.
But in April, the insurer started sending notices that it wouldn't pay for the surgery, after all; the family, not the insurance provider, would be on the hook for the $148,000 the hospital charged for the procedure. Pre-authorization, the insurance company explained, didn't necessarily guarantee payment on a claim would be forthcoming.
The company offered shifting explanations for why it wouldn't pay -- first, demanding proof that Napientak had tried less expensive measures to relieve his pain, and then, when he provided it, insisting that it lacked documentation for why the surgery was medically necessary. Napientak's wife, Sandie, asked her boss to help out, but with no luck. Fortunately for the Napientaks, they were able to attract the attention of a Chicago Tribune columnist before they had to figure out how to pay the six-figure bill -- once the newspaper started asking questions, the insurer suddenly decided, "based on additional information submitted," to cover the tab, after all.
This is just the tip of a very horrible iceberg.
And so Ms. Dazed and Confused, let me ask you a question. Now that you are no longer on Alaska's dole, who is your healthcare insurance provider now? Can you even get insurance considering that you have a special needs child?
Palin's soul-mate and likely opponent in 2012, Newt , said the government could never be trusted to manage healthcare. He's fine with the insurance companies doing what they do.
"You're asking us to decide that the government is to be trusted," Gingrich -- who may, like Palin, be running for the GOP's presidential nomination in 2012 -- told ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday. But as even a quick glance through news coverage of the last few years shows, private insurers are already doing what reform opponents say they want to save us from. (The insurance industry, pushing back against charges that they're part of the problem, said last month that "healthcare reform is far too important to be dragged down by divisive political rhetoric." The industry has long maintained that its decisions on what to cover are the result of careful investigations of each claim.)
I guess those delusional and manipulated teabagging deathers are just fine with things the way they are too.
And leave it to the Republicans to dredge up the bottom feeding Hitler's sheep in this country. A large segment of the teabagging deathers are hateful racists. This time they spray painted a Democratic congressman's office with a swastika.
Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, who came under scrutiny after accusing a local doctor of "hijacking" a recent town hall meeting is standing by his remarks and says some of the conservative protesters are motivated by racism.
Mr. Scott, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, appeared on Fox Business's "Happy Hour" Monday afternoon to give his side of the story after a Washington Times report of his contentious town hall was linked by the highly-trafficked Drudge Report over the weekend.
During the interview the congressman said "drama" over health care reform was being manufactured by right-wing protesters and has produced an uptick in racially-motivated attacks.
"There were tea baggers all over the place," the congressman said of his past town hall meeting. Later in the interview Mr. Scott produced a flier for the television camera that had an image of President Obama styled as The Joker. "If you look at this, that's a picture of President Barack Obama," Mr. Scott said holding the sign up. "He's grinning there like here's the clown from Batman. Underneath that it says Nigga, nigga David Scott. It says you were, and you are, and you always forever shall be but a nigga. If that ain't it I don't know what is."
I guess this is the best we can expect from the likes of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and their Republican Party. Death panels and swastikas. That is what the GOP is about.
Update: Diarist andreww at Daily Kos reveals Palin presided over her own death panels while governor of Alaska. Oh, so now we know why Palin wants us to have more civilized debates about HRC.
I'm telling you folks, anytime a Republican screams about something horrible, chances are that they themselves are doing it or have done it. |
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