Comments on: The Most Important Amendments You Have Not Heard About http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/ Politics for liberal newsgeeks Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:48:45 -0600 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: robspierre http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46984 robspierre Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:48:43 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46984 <p>“In effect this will replace the problems of “rescission” and “pre-existing condition” with the new problem of “death delay.” “</p> <p>“Death delay” is hardly new. Anyone who has dealt with an insurance company in a cancer case knows about the routine denials of obviously covered care, the call-center round robin tactics, the dropped calls, and the endless so-called mistakes and misunderstandings that end only when you make it very clear that you have both more than usual knowledge of the system and a readiness to seek legal redress. These tactics are intended to discourage at least a few until they die.</p> “In effect this will replace the problems of “rescission” and “pre-existing condition” with the new problem of “death delay.” “

“Death delay” is hardly new. Anyone who has dealt with an insurance company in a cancer case knows about the routine denials of obviously covered care, the call-center round robin tactics, the dropped calls, and the endless so-called mistakes and misunderstandings that end only when you make it very clear that you have both more than usual knowledge of the system and a readiness to seek legal redress. These tactics are intended to discourage at least a few until they die.

]]> By: myhaven http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46965 myhaven Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:49:41 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46965 <p>Obama doesn’t do hardball. I voted for him, because he espoused public option and an end to Iraq. He wants everyone to come to a consensus, but that is just another word for the least objectionable compromise. Last night’s appearance on Letterman was part of Rahm Emanuel’s (who does do hardball) PR blitz to push the health care reform bill, no matter what the final act actually entails. It is part of re-election campaign of the President. If the Republicans can roll him on this, they will copy the playbook over and over on his succeeding initiatives, including cap and trade, the environment, financial oversight of Wall St., et al.</p> Obama doesn’t do hardball. I voted for him, because he espoused public option and an end to Iraq. He wants everyone to come to a consensus, but that is just another word for the least objectionable compromise. Last night’s appearance on Letterman was part of Rahm Emanuel’s (who does do hardball) PR blitz to push the health care reform bill, no matter what the final act actually entails. It is part of re-election campaign of the President. If the Republicans can roll him on this, they will copy the playbook over and over on his succeeding initiatives, including cap and trade, the environment, financial oversight of Wall St., et al.

]]> By: tk1200 http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46964 tk1200 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:10:44 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46964 <p>Play hardball? Why not just vote no to a putrid giveaway to the private health insurance companies and let Obama go get himself some Republican votes to make it law. What liberal/progressive would want to run for re-election defending this pile of steaming shit that Obama calls health care reform?</p> <p>Surely, some smart Republican could ass a provision giving insurance companies legal immunity for denying treatment to a policy holder. He’d have his 51 votes in a heart beat.</p> Play hardball? Why not just vote no to a putrid giveaway to the private health insurance companies and let Obama go get himself some Republican votes to make it law. What liberal/progressive would want to run for re-election defending this pile of steaming shit that Obama calls health care reform?

Surely, some smart Republican could ass a provision giving insurance companies legal immunity for denying treatment to a policy holder. He’d have his 51 votes in a heart beat.

]]> By: tbau http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46962 tbau Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:40:56 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46962 <p>LOL! they’re supposed to make recommendations to the insurance companies. replete with all the ‘pretty pleases’ decorum dictates.</p> <p>sorry obama/max, still so transparent</p> LOL! they’re supposed to make recommendations to the insurance companies. replete with all the ‘pretty pleases’ decorum dictates.

sorry obama/max, still so transparent

]]> By: SunnyNobility http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46961 SunnyNobility Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:13:36 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46961 <p>You’re exactly right. One bite - Approve or deny (on a short deadline - with claim procedures simple and clear)and have monster penalties for wrongful denial. No cap on damages - lives are at stake. </p> <p>If they want to pay under protest (on some reasonable percentage of claims) that could be worth discussing. Just fine the hell out of them if they are wrong. Every single time. </p> <p>All appeals should be totally outside the industry’s sphere of influence.<br /> Baucus is wicked and shameless.</p> You’re exactly right. One bite – Approve or deny (on a short deadline – with claim procedures simple and clear)and have monster penalties for wrongful denial. No cap on damages – lives are at stake.

If they want to pay under protest (on some reasonable percentage of claims) that could be worth discussing. Just fine the hell out of them if they are wrong. Every single time.

All appeals should be totally outside the industry’s sphere of influence.
Baucus is wicked and shameless.

]]> By: freeman http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46958 freeman Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:30:31 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46958 <p>How come there is enough money to bailout wall street and fund two wars simultaneously while spending nearly as much money on defence as the entire world combined for decades ?<br /> How did alexander unravel the gordian knot ?</p> How come there is enough money to bailout wall street and fund two wars simultaneously while spending nearly as much money on defence as the entire world combined for decades ?
How did alexander unravel the gordian knot ?

]]> By: freeman http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46956 freeman Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:22:11 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46956 <p>Amendments aside , according to Ron Wyden the way it stands now the public option would apply to MAYBE 15% of the population ( the working poor )and that’s if it’s even in the the final Bill !<br /> Obama has already shown his thinking in relation to the uninsured,” were not going to carry your weight anymore “. He is no more or less than the face of corporate power .Big surprise .<br /> Without the threat from the progressive caucus in the house the public option would be history already .That single fact is more important than even the so called reform being offered !<br /> Obama campaigned saying he was a proponent of single payer , so give him what he asked for !!!<br /> Play some hardball or you are allowing the corporations to write their own ticket and handing them 45 million new customers and we will have missed the first opportunity in a generation to advance our democracy !</p> Amendments aside , according to Ron Wyden the way it stands now the public option would apply to MAYBE 15% of the population ( the working poor )and that’s if it’s even in the the final Bill !
Obama has already shown his thinking in relation to the uninsured,” were not going to carry your weight anymore “. He is no more or less than the face of corporate power .Big surprise .
Without the threat from the progressive caucus in the house the public option would be history already .That single fact is more important than even the so called reform being offered !
Obama campaigned saying he was a proponent of single payer , so give him what he asked for !!!
Play some hardball or you are allowing the corporations to write their own ticket and handing them 45 million new customers and we will have missed the first opportunity in a generation to advance our democracy !

]]> By: xargaw http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46955 xargaw Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:34:27 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46955 <p>My spouse has medicare with a supplemental policy. Every bill, every claim is flawless. It is paid. I get the supporting documentation showing it is paid. No problems. On the other hand, I have private insurance. (Can’t wait to turn 65) When I have met my huge deductable (despite huge premium), it is a paperwork nightmare. Paperwork from everywhere, difficult to match up with services, errors, no itemized bills unless requested after the fact, and always a bill from some unknown provider that you have to figure out what their service was related to. I can’t imagine a really sick person, an older person, a non-computer literate person or a person that is not a persistent bull-dog dealing with the deliberate pile that is health care. As I write this I am waiting for an itemized bill for ONE test which has been requested in writing two times and requested verbally two times. I have been sent the wrong bill for the wrong date for the wrong service three time already. Anyone that has actually used their healthcare and has any experience with medicare knows that a government program is the absolute best way to go for healthcare.</p> My spouse has medicare with a supplemental policy. Every bill, every claim is flawless. It is paid. I get the supporting documentation showing it is paid. No problems. On the other hand, I have private insurance. (Can’t wait to turn 65) When I have met my huge deductable (despite huge premium), it is a paperwork nightmare. Paperwork from everywhere, difficult to match up with services, errors, no itemized bills unless requested after the fact, and always a bill from some unknown provider that you have to figure out what their service was related to. I can’t imagine a really sick person, an older person, a non-computer literate person or a person that is not a persistent bull-dog dealing with the deliberate pile that is health care. As I write this I am waiting for an itemized bill for ONE test which has been requested in writing two times and requested verbally two times. I have been sent the wrong bill for the wrong date for the wrong service three time already. Anyone that has actually used their healthcare and has any experience with medicare knows that a government program is the absolute best way to go for healthcare.

]]> By: sporkovat http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46954 sporkovat Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:04:33 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46954 <p>you can push for a public option, that is fine, and of course puts you in the mainstream of the FDL, but you keep referring to something that <em>doesn’t exist</em> in any of the bills under consideration in Congress, a real, robust PO along the lines of Jacob Hacker’s original public option proposals.</p> <p>But, have you considered that you are simply being used, and the ‘PO’ was <em>always</em> just a feint, to divide and conquer the Left and avert serious consideration of Single Payer?</p> <blockquote><p><strong>Asked if the administration’s program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says: “I think that’s very much the case, and again,</strong> if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion.”</p> <p>Sebelius says such concerns are unfounded because a single-payer plan is not under consideration, and these “draconian” scenarios have muddled the conversation over the president’s proposal for a public option.</p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/sebelius-not-only-it-not-single-payer" rel="nofollow">http://crooksandliars.com/susi.....ngle-payer</a></p> <p>therefore, not only does this magical rainbow-pooping robust PO not exist, it was conjured on purpose to distract from real reform while a vast bailout is arranged for the greedy insurance cartel. And it is they whose water you are carrying, whether you are aware of it or not.</p> you can push for a public option, that is fine, and of course puts you in the mainstream of the FDL, but you keep referring to something that doesn’t exist in any of the bills under consideration in Congress, a real, robust PO along the lines of Jacob Hacker’s original public option proposals.

But, have you considered that you are simply being used, and the ‘PO’ was always just a feint, to divide and conquer the Left and avert serious consideration of Single Payer?

Asked if the administration’s program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says: “I think that’s very much the case, and again, if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion.”

Sebelius says such concerns are unfounded because a single-payer plan is not under consideration, and these “draconian” scenarios have muddled the conversation over the president’s proposal for a public option.

http://crooksandliars.com/susi…..ngle-payer

therefore, not only does this magical rainbow-pooping robust PO not exist, it was conjured on purpose to distract from real reform while a vast bailout is arranged for the greedy insurance cartel. And it is they whose water you are carrying, whether you are aware of it or not.

]]> By: TheLurkingMod http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46953 TheLurkingMod Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:01:24 +0000 http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/the-most-important-amendments-you-have-not-heard-about/#comment-46953 <p>watertiger is upstairs!<br /><a href="http://firedoglake.com/2009/09/21/late-night-on-bailouts-bogeymen-and-false-equivalencies/" rel="nofollow">Late Night: On Bailouts, Bogeymen and False Equivalencies</a></p> watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: On Bailouts, Bogeymen and False Equivalencies

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