President Bush told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published today that he would be pushing "innovative programs" like "association health care plans" in his state of the union address. Take note of the term. The Bush-adopted "Association health plan" racket has been one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated against patients in the United States, and that takes into account the attrocities committed by HMOs against their patients. Bush's solution to the nation's health care woes is insurance that offers no insuring.
Here's how the association health plan fraud works. Patients who are insured by these low-premium junk policies can wind up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. That's right -- an insured patient in the United States can wind up paying unlimited amounts for serious medical conditions. That's because these skeletal benefit policies have no out-of-pocket maximum for how much you have to pay for your own treatment. But there is a limit on how much the insurers will pay for a whole range of treatments, from hospitalization to chemo.
Under "Bush-care," these association health plans would be peddled to far more people and removed from all state regulation and lawsuits which currently hold them accountable for some of the fraud they committ. The Department of Labor would have sole jurisdiction, rather than every state's courts, legislature, attorney general and insurance commissioner. If you want to understand the nighmare of these Bush-backed junk policies, consider the horror story of Doug Christensen told by the Los Angeles Times. He and his wife were marketed an association health plan policy through a phony association with a nice enough sounding name -- The National Association of Self-Employed, basically a shell group existing only to sell the junk insurance. The policy paid near nothing when Doug had a re-occurrence of his cancer. On his death bed, Doug asked Dana to divorce him to avoid liability for the half million dollars in bills that the association health plan wouldn't pay. Welcome to Bush Care. The first call Democratic Congressional leaders should make after the state of the union is for Dana Christensen to have a sit down with the President.
Bush-care is not just about letting traditional HMOs and insurers steal our money, then giving us a tax deduction to soften the blow of the theft, rather than stopping it. It's about giving credibility to insurance that isn't insurance. Without a limit on how much a patient can pay out of their own pocket for health care, insurance isn't worth a dime.
The Austin blue grass band The Lounge Lizards nail the new Bush health care anthem in their new song "Go Ahead And Die."
"I will spare your life if bloated premiums you'll pay. But if you cannot afford this ransom, here is what I'll say. Yo Ho, Yo Ho, Go Ahead and Die. .I have got mine and I feel fine. So go ahead and die." Every American that cares about the health of the U.S. health care system should pass a copy of their free and funny new "Pirates of the Health Care-ibbean" music video on to their friends and family to expose the coming nightmare of Bush-care before next week's state of the union.