L.A. City Atty: Health insurance "not worth the paper it's printed on"

June 19 - Moscone Convention Center West - Day of Shame -  Targeting AHIP Annual Meeting  (featuring 38,000 insurance industry parasites) -  Check CNA web site for details. Details will follow on Daily Kos as well.

___________________________________________________________

Now to the atrocity of the day.

The great Lisa Girion at The Los Angeles Times is reporting this morning that Anthem Blue Cross "made false promises of coverage and hid a scheme to drop sick policyholders".

The insurance industry is fully out-of-control in California, they are cancelling policies left and right and the regulators seem stuck in quicksand.

Because of this, the Los Angeles City attorney, Rocky Delgadillo recently launched a web site called Protect the insured.org. In a matter of months it's received 40,000 hits and a deluge of complaints.

There will come a point when American people will demand that this criminal industry be brought to its knees.

It will begin on June 19th outside the Moscone Convention Center West.

Worthless jounalists entertainers:

So while ABC Fox "News" is transfixed about whether Barack Obama had his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, or whether he loves the flag and lapel flag pins, here's what's happening in the real world. This is what's happening to real people as contrasted to the faux reality of ABC Fox News and Presidential "Debate" trivia.

The absolutely worthless and so self-important traditional media kind of make you giggle. If I'm not mistaken, (I missed about ten minutes), there weren't any questions about the collapse of the U.S. healthcare system.

So let's turn our attention to what is destroying this country.

Real Americans facing terrible problems:

When I read this L.A. Times article, only one thought went through my brain.  So what else is new?

This has been going on since the dawn of time. This is standard insurance industry operating procedure.  They take our money and deny us care.  We know this.

The state's largest for-profit health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, was accused Wednesday of a widespread pattern of false advertising and fraud in a $1-billion lawsuit that claims that the company's coverage "is largely illusory."

Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo alleged in the suit that the insurer sold people false promises of coverage and concealed a scheme to renege on policies for those diagnosed with serious and often expensive medical conditions, including cancer and congestive heart failure. The suit says more than 500,000 people were tricked into buying individual and family policies from Blue Cross.

 
"Countless Californians who believe they have insurance actually have policies that aren't worth the paper they're printed on," Delgadillo said. An Anthem Blue Cross spokeswoman said the company intended to vigorously defend itself and "strongly disagrees with the allegations." A spokesman for the insurer's parent company, Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., declined to discuss the allegations.

[emphasis added]

http://www.latimes.com/...

We know that health insurance is an on-going criminal enterprise. Yes, I chose my words with great care.  This is what health insurance has become.  It's a crap shoot. If you can afford to, you pay for it. But we know that if God forbid you need to make a claim, it's likely they will deny  what your doctor believes you need.  Or, best case scenerio, they will engage you in a take-no-prisoners fight. Insurers are so skilled at waging war against very sick people.  Insurers know someone with a cancer diagnosis, is already depleted, frightened and not a good warrior.

And we know how the game is played.  We pay staggering premiums year-after-year, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Then when a family member becomes sick and needs a test, a  tier 4 medication or some other procedure, the insurer refuses to pay.

Ask the family of Nataline Sarkisyan how the game is played.

Ask the family of Nick Colombo how the game is played.  

So you're left wondering why do the politicians just look the other way?  Why is this parasitic industry allowed to spread fear across the land?  Why is Roger Clemens hauled before Congress, but not the CEO of Anthem Blue Cross?  Why are insurance industry executives allowed to hold a Mafia Conference in a major American city (San Francisco) without being rounded up and perp walked?

Here's why.

Health Plan Payments to Lobbyists Soared in 2007, Could Grow More in 2008

Health insurers collectively paid more money to lobbyists in 2007 than they did a year earlier, according to disclosure forms made available last month by the U.S. Senate's public records office (see table, below). Much of that money was spent to lobby lawmakers on issues related to Medicare Advantage (MA) and the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). With both issues still unresolved — combined with the threat of health care reform under a potential Democratic president - industry observers say lobbyists might see even heftier paychecks this year from their health insurance clients.

"The number-one issue for health plans last year was payment under Medicare Advantage," says Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, LLC, a policy and marketplace consulting firm based in Alexandria, Va. That issue, along with SCHIP, has been pushed forward and will continue to be a key topic for health plans and their lobbyists in 2008 and 2009, he adds.

http://www.aishealth.com/...

And what do the lobbyists do with the money?  Well you know the answer to that.  

It's protection money, paid to the political class.

The trade association America's Health Insurance Plans paid $6.9 million to lobbyists in 2007, which is slightly less than the $7.1 million it spent in 2006. In addition to bills that called for the expansion of SCHIP, AHIP lobbied in favor of legislation that would allow for the marketing of generic biotech drugs, and against MA payment cuts.

http://www.aishealth.com/...

This is what we're fighing. These are the mechants of death we must defeat.

You might want to click this link about lobbyist money because there's a chart at the end which details which insurers are paying bribing the most for protection.

June 19th in San Francisco.