Fight Back Against Health Insurance Lies

What does UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Hemsley have to lose if Congress passes real health care reform this year? Well, for starters, Hemsley's nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in unexercised stock options might lose a few pennies on the dollar if insurance providers like UnitedHealth Group are forced to actually pay for the treatment that patients need.

What does Isabella, a four year-old girl in Wisconsin who is physically incapable of eating and has had to be tube fed her entire life, have to gain from health care reform? The treatment she needs to live a normal life.

The chance for Isabella to become a normal, healthy child depends on Congress passing health care reform this year. But Stephen Hemsley opposes reform, and after making the equivalent of $4,096,815 each and every week of this year, it doesn't take an expert to figure out why.

Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for themselves and their families, insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group are sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo.

Why? Because maintaining the status quo means continuing to allow huge insurance corporations like UnitedHealth Group to treat the physical livelihoods of average Americans as commodities to exploit for shareholder profits and outsized executive compensation packages. It means continuing to let working class people suffer and die so that wealthy insurance executives can live in $7.8 million mansions like Hemsley's Minnesota home.

Help Brave New Films expose the truth about what the status quo means for insurance executives, and what it means for the rest of us. And if you or a loved one has been victimized by the unscrupulous practices of CIGNA, Aetna, WellPoint, Humana or Coventry, tell us your story.

With your help, we'll make sure that in the future, our premium dollars pay for treatment for patients like Isabella, and not to line the pockets of billionaires like Hemsley.

Visit us at SickForProfit.com.

Follow Robert Greenwald on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robertgreenwald

Comments

[condor101]

Rampant Fraud from the Right Wing. I'm re-posting this link. Please watch the interview of Wendell Potter. He speaks the truth. We need congress to vote for a Public Plan. Right now, the insurance companies are salivating at the prospect of having the 50 million un-insured to be mandated to buy health insurance. We need a Public Plan so that private insurance companies will have to compete and lower their premiums. Wake Up People! Do Something! Please watch this video interview of Wendell Potter and then contact your congressma­­n/senator­, urging them to support a Public Plan. Also, feel free to copy and re-post the video link below and/or my message and place on all comment boards on HuffPost. We need to get more and more people to watch this interview and effect change. Currently, the Corporate Beaurocrats and their Lobby are taking over town hall meetings and influencing the general public to be scared of a Public Plan. We need to take control of this debate and show the Real Truth. If you haven't seen Bill Moyers' interview with Wendell Potter, former PR executive for CIGNA, I strongly recommend it: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/watch2.html

[DougDeWitt]

Yes, its true. Private health insurance companies make profits on behalf of stockholders who insist on maximizing those profits for their own benefits, by way of yearly dividend checks. Return on investment is an American institution.

We, the People, are however in position to change the way health insurance companies do business. We are in position to change the way profits inure to health insurance companies in a way that brings about changes in company policy.

Each state's insurance commission­/departmen­t has the authority to enforce whatever rules our legislatures make through the enactment of law. Perhaps most expedient would be simply to enact legislation capping private insurance company profits at a percentage (10%?) of the total of claims paid in the previous year.

Such a step removes the incentive to deny claims routinely, pending review, which ultimately limits total claims paid. Instead, incentive would be strong to routinely approve EVERY claim, pending governmental oversight denial as a non-qualified service.

Follow more here: http://whigsntories.blogspot.com/2009/08/short-primer-in-health-care.html

[Dale Larson]

It's time to end our "risky experiment" of "For-profit health insurance". It's a proven failure.

Support HR676. It's a Single Payer system that is proven, pro-business and pro-people:

* Slashes at least 30% of costs off the top by removing private insurance overhead.
* Companies take health care expenses off their books. Stock value increases. Better able to compete internationally.
* Small companies could have access to higher skilled workers because previously they couldn't compete in the labor market by offering similar benefits.
* More entrepreneurial ventures will launch since they have more money and less unrelated risk.
* Dramatic drop in bankruptcies.
* Dramatic drop in lawsuits. Most of these lawsuits are simply to obtain money to cover health care if something interrupts their coverage.
* Reduced system complexity. Greater efficiency due to fewer regulations.
* Savings from employees not having to fight with their insurers during work hours.
* HSA and MSA dollars redirected back into the economy for goods and services.
* Additional money to spend from not having to carry "uninsured motorist coverage" on your auto policy.
* Contract employment is more viable for workers since they are guaranteed access to health care.
* People are covered when unemployed. No chance of being wiped out financially if you lose your job.
* Health care providers (doctors, hospitals, therapists...) see increase in business with much less administrative expense.

[Dale Larson]

TEST FOR THE ANTI-HEALTH CARE REFORM FOLKS...

1) Name any positive influence for-profit health insurance has had on providing health care?

That's it. No other questions.

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Answers (now don't peek until you provide your answer!)

.gnihtoN (1

[Azazello]

A new report by the Lewin Group says that Hemsley deserves a raise.

[doriath22]

Eli Wallach's character in The Magnificent Seven put the philosophy of the insurance business best--"If God didn't want them to be sheared, he wouldn't have made them sheep"

[cycle3man]

Arrianna said it best:

Stephen Hemsley is a pig at the trough !!!!!!

[Dosadi]

Once the people realize this was a scam all along health care will be reformed. Remember two names; Kaiser and Nixon. It is their fault. Nixon backed it because it was a scam to collect premiums and deny care. This is a known fact but we Americans are not into facts that much.

[patricklee5150]

Obama will get health care reform with thed public option. Just you wait and see.

[GreatNews27]

They're only lies if no one believes them. Besides, the point is moot. Obama has been corralled by Pharma and Big Insurance. He won't be passing health care reform in this centruy or any other. This is America, the ones with the gold, rule.

[condor101]

Very True......­......unfo­rtunately.