Health Insurance Companies Defraud America

Health Insurance Company Uses Propaganda to Scare Seniors

The government is investigating a major insurance company for allegedly trying to scare seniors with a mailer warning they could lose important benefits under health care legislation in Congress.

The Health and Human Services Department launched its investigation of Humana after getting a complaint from Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a senior lawmaker usually viewed as a reliable ally of the insurance industry.

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Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Ky., is cooperating with the investigation and stopped the mailer earlier this month, company spokesman Tom Noland said Monday.

The Senate committee that Baucus chairs — Finance — will vote this week on a sweeping health care plan that he’s proposed to expand coverage and try to control costs. It would cut Medicare and Medicaid spending by about $500 billion over 10 years, but Baucus says that would lead to greater efficiency, not reduced benefits.

“The health care reform bill we released … strengthens Medicare and does not cut benefits,” said Baucus. “From lower prescription drug costs, to free preventive care, to better treatment for chronic conditions, seniors have so much to gain from health reform — and I’m not going to let insurance company profits stand in the way of improving Medicare for seniors.”

Humana is one of the largest private carriers serving . . . 1.4 million Medicare Advantage enrollees, and the program accounts for about half the company’s revenue, Noland said.

Government experts say the private plans are being paid too much — about 14% more than it costs to care for seniors in traditional Medicare. The Baucus plan — and other proposals — would reduce payments to the plans, and the health insurance industry is fighting back.

The Humana mailer focused squarely on the Medicare Advantage program.

“While these programs need to be made more efficient, if the proposed funding cut levels become law, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable,” it said.

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 21, 3:19 pm ET

Seniors Will Benefit Most From Health Care Reform

In an effort to keep their most active constituents under thumb, Republicans have tried to use misinformation and scare tactics in ads targeted to seniors. In reality, health care reform and strengthening of Medicare will do much good for improving conditions for the growing number of senior citizens in the United States.

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hosted a town hall and released a new report titled “Reform and Medicare: Making Medicare Stronger for Americas Seniors” that outlines how health insurance reform will help seniors by protecting the Medicare trust fund, reduce costs and ensure that all seniors get the high-quality, affordable health care they deserve.

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Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report. Reports from Kathleen Sebelius’ Health and Human Services outline how Medicare would be stronger after reforms. http://www.wibw.com/political/headlines/61299032.html

Insurance Industry Runs a Massive Misinformation Campaign to Block Healthcare Insurance Reform

While millions of Americans worry daily about rising health insurance premiums or whether they will ever be able to even afford health insurance, health insurers and HMOs are spending millions to influence lawmakers and public policy. According to the Public Campaign Action Fund, these health care industries have spent $585.7 million since 2007 on lobbying and campaign contributions.

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David Donnelly, the Fund’s national campaigns director, noted on the group’s website that the health insurance companies and HMOs are spending nearly $700,000 daily against health care reform efforts. “Why are so many in Congress willing to listen to an industry that is spending tens of millions every month on politics,” asked Donnelly, “rather than lowering their premiums or helping to address the costs of health care?”

Another nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog that is tracking money in American politics is the Center for Responsive Politics, which notes that health insurance interests have 875 registered lobbyists working for them and HMOs have 920. The Center provides a lobbying database on their website where individuals can search for the total spending by a particular industry (e.g., health insurance, pharmaceutical), view the interests that lobbied a specific government agency, and other information.

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Health Insurance Companies Spend Millions to Fight Health Reform Submitted by Deborah Mitchell on Sep 16th, 2009 http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/72/33579/health-insurance-companies-spend-millions-fight-health-reform.html

Public or Private, We Need to Have the Right to Choose

77% of Americans support their right to choose a public health insurance option. The reform bill would provide American citizens with the choice of having a private health insurance plan or the plan currently available to members of Congress and other federal officials.

Essentially, a public option in a health insurance reform bill would provide American citizens with the choice of having a private health insurance plan or the plan currently available to members of Congress and other federal officials. It would drive down premiums while allowing citizens struggling to find or afford health insurance a viable health care option.

Public support for a public option has been consistently high over the past year. An August poll by SurveyUSA shows 77% of Americans support their right to choose a public health insurance option.

Yet over the past several weeks, we’ve seen everyone from senators Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, to Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate finance committee, run away from a public option. We’ve seen members of the conservative Democrat Blue Dog Coalition in the House of Representatives demand its exclusion from a health reform bill. We’ve seen conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity assault proponents of a public option as socialists hell-bent on wrecking the private health care industry.

The truth is proponents of the public option understand the inexplicably high costs, both financial and moral, of maintaining the status quo into the future. The United States pays staggeringly more of its GDP on health care than any other nation on earth. Costs are projected to rise to unforeseen heights as baby boomers reach their 70s and the next generation approaches retirement. Frank Clemente, in a February report by the Institute for America’s Future, argues “the savings that can be achieved by insuring millions of people in a public health insurance plan may be enough to pay for covering the 46 million Americans currently without insurance.” . . .

What is being done is leaders (and I use that term loosely) playing campaign politics with a moral and fiscal issue of grand proportions. If we don’t include a public health insurance option in the upcoming health care reform package, we’ll be left with unfunded mandates and no mechanism to bring down long-term costs.

Without the public option, we’ll face continued health care failure. Our future economic and health security just can’t afford that.

By Ian Sams – Junior at University of Alabama, “We Need a Public Option” The Crimson White, Friday, September 25, 2009- http://www.cw.ua.edu/we-need-a-public-option-1.1914276