US Health Care Program - with some twist

[Boats]

YouTube- America Rising An Open Letter to...

[jriley1349]

Notice how the original letter on this post (which is still being circulating by the right-wing screech machine) never mentions the letter date or the fact that House Bill 3200 was shot down? Even the magazine source links at the bottom of the letter are dead-ends.

Here's a link that does work and provides some facts about the bill:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/twe...about-hr-3200/

Good catch, Doc Fred and THANKS for providing USEFUL information about the state of health care and Medicare!

[1CAVCCO15MED]

Money Losers of 2007: William McGuire surrenders $600 million
Posted Dec 23rd 2007 10:10AM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Management, Scandals

More

Following a series of 2006 reports in The Wall Street Journal on options backdating, the SEC, IRS and, and U.S. Attorney's office began investigating UnitedHealth and more than 100 other companies.

Dr. William McGuire, CEO and chairman, ran UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) for 15 years, turning what was then a regional insurer into the nation's second-largest managed health care company. Like many companies in the 1990s, UnitedHealth rewarded its chairman and CEO with options to buy company shares at a fixed price. McGuire was allowed to choose the dates for his option awards, and the crux of the backdating accusation is that, to boost the options' value, he picked a date in the past when the share price was lower and signed papers as if he were granted the options on that earlier date.

Due to his involvement in the stock options scandal, McGuire stepped down in late 2006. He was the highest-profile corporate chief caught in the probe.

After months of mediated talks between McGuire and a "special litigation committee" of two former Minnesota Supreme Court justices appointed by UnitedHealth's board, McGuire agreed earlier this to repay $468 million, as a partial settlement of the backdating prosecution, including giving back $320 million in stock options and forgoing more than $99 million in other retirement and executive savings benefits he received from 2003 through 2006. He had already agreed to reprice some stock options, reducing their value by another $200 million, as well as giving up use of the company plane and his company-funded life and health insurance.

The settlement includes a $7 million civil penalty. A review by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is still outstanding. More than $800 million in McGuire's other stock options remain frozen by court order, pending a class-action suit.



Now, as for lawyers, do you know we passed the 1 million mark quite a few years ago. Somebody even made a song about it called obviously "One Million Lawyers":

One Million Lawyers
Words and Music by Tom Paxton
Humankind has survived some disasters, for sure,
Like locusts and flash floods and flu.
There's never a moment when we've been secure,
From the ills that the flesh is heir to.
If it isn't a war, it's some gruesome disease.
If it isn't disease, then it's war.
But there's worse still to come, and I'm asking you, please,
How the world's gonna take any more.

[Cho:]
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers.
One million lawyers, one million lawyers.
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers.
How much can a poor nation stand?

The world shook with dread of Attila the Hun
As he conquered with fire and steel.
And Genghis and Kubla and all of the Khans
Ground a groaning world under the heel.
Disaster, disaster - so what else is new?
We've suffered the worst, and then some.
So I'm sorry to tell you, my suffering friends,
Of the terrible scourge still to come.

[Cho:]

Oh, a suffering world cries for mercy.
As far as the eye can see,
Lawyers around every bend in the road.
Lawyers in every tree.
Lawyers in restaurants.
Lawyers in clubs.
Lawyers behind every door.
Behind windows and potted plants,
Shade trees and shrubs.
Lawyers on pogo sticks.
Lawyers in politics.
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers.
How much can a poor nation stand.

In spring it's tornados and rampaging floods;
In summer it's heat stroke and drought.
There's Ivy League football to ruin the fall,
It's a terrible scourge without doubt.
There are blizzards to batter the shivering plain.
There are dust storms that strike, but far worse
Is the threat of disaster to shrivel the brain;
It's the threat of implacable curse


That fairly well explains my views on lawyers.

[1CAVCCO15MED]

By the way, if you read my original post, I consider the Health Care Bill a failure. Not because liberals wrote it, not because conservatives opposed it, but because once again the insurance industry has turned a attempt to take their hand from around America's throat into a windfall. I tell you what will be interesting. See how much more money goes into the coffers of the Democrats from the health care industry in the next few years. Don't worry Republicans, they'll still pay you too. Good boy.

As I said several months ago, we already pay more than anyone in the world for health care. The proof of reform is if we pay less and cover everyone.

[Doc.2/47]

Don't know of anyone who would consider me a liberal but gotta say I agree with Doc. Fred on this one. I don't see this as a Lib./Con. issue but simply as a matter of right and wrong.

[jriley1349]

"...House Bill 3200 was shot down"

It seems that HR 3200 morphed into HR 3962:
------
HR 3962
Affordable Health Care for America Act
Sponsor: Dingell (D-Mich.)
Cosponsors: 6 Total (6 Democrats)
Official Title: A bill to provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.
Introduced: Oct. 29, 2009
Last Major Action: Nov. 7, 2009 — House Vote 887 Health Care Overhaul — Passage
Passed 220-215. Congressional Record p. H12967-H12968

[1CAVCCO15MED]

In the majority of states, it has been perfectly legal to give pay incentives for denying claims for insurance:

STATE LEGISLATION

Of the 16 jurisdictions that have legislation on incentive-based claim denials, only Connecticut, Minnesota, and Rhode Island specifically prohibit utilization review companies from offering any type of incentive packages to their employees for denying claims or rescinding policies. The other 13 (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, and Texas) have legislation aimed at prohibiting insurance companies from offering incentives to health care providers or physicians for any form of claim or care denial. These 13 states do not have legislation specifically targeting employees of utilization review or insurance companies.

[1CAVCCO15MED]

You know, I read HR 3200. I did it for two reasons: I got sick and tired of Republicans who can quote how many pages there were but couldn't quote a thing the bill said and blogs who "interpret" the law for you because it is too much effort for a lowly person like you to read. What I found were page after page of things we already are reqiired to do by Medicare, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, etc. that were supposedly some kind of horrible new Communistic takeover of the government. I guess now I have to read the other one. Dry oatmeal anyone?

It goes back to that old common sense reasoning that if you ain't read it you don't know jack---- about it.