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TIGER SOFTWARE
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The Senate's Sell-Out
One HELL of A Health Bill
Maybe, the biggest reason the market is rallying
is
because Obama is doing a better job at destroying the Democratic Party than
the
Republicans. His cave-ins to the the positions of the Bush Administration,
one
after another, from wire-tapping, gay marriage, Afghanistan to public rights
have
thoroughly demoralized the new, young enthusiastic base he mobilized
to
get into the White House. Why should they vote. they ask? Just what
Republicans
want them th feel. Obama is so totally uninvolved in the details of
legislation.
He is truly a laissez-faire President. Senator Feingold said today,
"I’ve been fighting all year for a
strong public option to compete
with
the insurance industry and bring health care spending down. I continued
that
fight during recent negotiations, and I refused to sign onto a deal to drop
the
public option from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, the lack of support from
the
administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle.
Removing
the public option from the Senate bill is the wrong move, and
eliminates
$25 billion in savings. I will be urging members of the House and
Senate
who draft the final bill to make sure this essential provision is included."
(Source: ttp://news.firedoglake.com/2009/12/21/dean-agrees-with-feingold-obama-responsible-for-loss-of-public-option/
)
Hands
off as he is, Obama did summon the energy to attack personally
oward
Dean for calling this health care bill "crap". Meanwhile, Obama has
never
given a single word of chastisement to Senator Joe Lieberman, who
personally
campaigned for McCain and vetoed the public option, more than
any
other Senator.
Health Insurance
Stocks Will Rally
A Lot More, Now.
Well-Point Blue
Cross's stock has doubled in 2009. The Senate has
made their future
very bright. Here is the TigerSoft chart of their stock.
It trades very
well with the TigerSoft CLosing Power, but it's real profits
come from the US
Senate, ownership of which it shares with a consortium
of other
for-,max-profit health insurance companies. .
But some health Insurance companies have been running scared. Well-Pont paid
its CEO Larry
Glassrock $23 million in 2005, bringing his 5 year total compensation
to $46,8 million.
Now the latest tear's top exec's pay is much reduced according
to Yahoo.
Clearly, the health insurance executives know they must clean up their
greedy act. But
that was not true for Aetna's
Ronald Wiliams, who received
$24,300,112
last year. This is criminal. It it is an outrage. Consumers should
boycott Aetna when they
find this out. That's almost $500,000 a week! In Detroit
that's 25 houses a
week.
Aetna's
Ronald Wiliams - $2 Million A Month Man
In five years, Ronald Williams has gouged 77.86 million dollars
in compensation
from shareholders and consumers, as the CEO of Aetna. Aetna
Insurance helped finance
domestic slavery by writing life insurance on the lives of enslaved Africans. Slave owners
were the beneficiaries. Another
reason for boycotting AETNA.
In June, 2009, Williams testified against a public option as part of national health care reform before the United States House Committee on Ways and Means. He said, "I cannot support this kind of public plan and see it as a danger to the stability of community and rural hospitals and to health care overall. It would lead to continuing to reward episodic care, as opposed to care management. It will be costly to implement, taking dollars away from an already burdened health care system. And, it could be a plan of last resort, creating a new problem for us to manage."[3]
In August, 2009, when asked by an interviewer why Americans seem to pay so much for
health care but get too little in return, Williams responded, "Well, I think that
there are many people who do question the value that the healthcare system is delivering" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Williams
) (Editor's note. American longevity is on a par with
Cuba's, which now paysonly $251/year
on each person's health care.)
UNBRIDLED, UNMITIGATED CALLOUS
GREED
IS THE ROOT EVIL IN THE
PRESENT HEALTH CARE
SYSTEM
2007 Total Exec Compensation
2008 Total Exec Compensation
22,000 Americans die every
year because they lack
affordable health care. Two out of every three
bankruptcies
are caused by impossible-to-pay health care bills.
The
Health Insurance industry currently has a lock on our
political system, especially in the Senate. Max
Baucus
gets most of his money from the industry. Nelson from
Nebraska was a health insurance CEO. Lieberman is
paid millions in the form of campaign contributions
to
maintain the status quo for Hartford insurance
companies. Fellow Connecticut Senator Chris
Dodd's
wife is on the board of a health insurance company.
The list goes on and on... Cuba paying only $251
a year on health care per person, has better health
statistics, longevity, inflant mortality, maternal
mortality
and neonatal death rates, etc... .
We have so many questions about what the Senate Health Insurance Reform
Bill has just achieved,
we thought we should lay them out. Then we can start
to see what lies
beneath the murky surface of this Bill that the Democrats are crowing
so proudly about.
As we learn more, we will write it up here.
The most basic question is qhy do think that FOR-PROFIT private health
insurance companies
will ever want to protect us when we fall sick. Their
profits depend upon NOT
paying for our health care. They have every reason
to not help us.
They ration care now. Why should we allow companies whose
interests are
antithetical to ours ration health care, at all.
And why must we be forced to pay their $10 million to $30 million a year annual
salaries. They
are not doctors. What do they do that makes them so valuable to
society? Nothing
that I can see, except deny coverage and over-charge poor working
people so that they
cac't afford basic tests.
Where is the competition in all this? How will competition to keep rates down
be increased?
A government run alternative, like MEDICARE would have provided
that. But that is
gone in the Senate's bill/ Won't we be gouged terribly?
2014? There are 46 million uninsured Americans now. In 2014, 18 million will
still be uninsured.
Why is that? I thought the Democrats stood for universal health
care insurance?
When did they start saying that 18,000,000 souls do not count?
When did they quietly
say that their cries and suffering do not matter? I missed
that memo.
Why if this is such a good bill must we wait for four years before it goes
into effect? is
not the reason for the delay, that it allows the health insurance
companies four more
years of unrestrained jacking up of their rates and
gouging of consumers.
Just how are consumers protected until then? And is
the delay not just a
way of giving Republicans every chance to kill the legislation
when they re-win
control of Congress.
How many people will die between now and 2014 from lack of affordable
health insurance? Who
is crowing about that amongh the Demcrats?
What about all the working people that can only afford the least expensive health
insurance now? The
so-called catastrophic insurance. This type covers no
preventative tests.
Many people have this type of unhealthy health insurance.
It still costs $500 a month
from a for-profit Well Point California Blue Cross. But
tragically, after paying
their monthly catastrophic health insurance premiums,
they just have no money for
preventative tests. Tests that would detect colon,
breast or prostate cancer in
its earlier, more treatabke stages. Tests that would
detect high blood pressure or
impaired blood circulation. So, they walk around
quite possibly with a cancer
getting biggger and bigger, with higher and
higher blood pressure
weakening their heart's arteries with build-ups of plaque.
Only in America! Is it
not correct to say ours is a hellth insurance system?
The top 10%
most wealth Americans now own 90% of the wealth of America
that is not owned by
foreigners already? Why is this wealth not taxed directly?
They are the ones who demand
the most protection, as they protect their empires
of greed? They are the
ones who have benefitted the most from the system?
They are the ones who make
money from wars? Why are they not taxed directly
for their Wealth. Why
is their no WEALTH TAX?
Higher Income tax
on very high incomes? The Democrats and Obama will proudly
now say they're taxing
incomes of over $250,000 a year 0.5% to help pay for the
provision of health care to
more people. Why are income taxes on the very wealthy
so very low. From 1936
to 1962, the highest tax rate was more than 86%, usually
92%. Now its under 40%.
By the way, why does this extra 1/2% tax on the highest
income not start until 2012?
Don't we have a two trillion dollar deficit now? The
problem now with the economy
is under-consumption. Working people have too little
money to buy anything, while
the rich just save most of their money or speculate
in the stock market.
This does not help Main Street very much at all. The marginal
rates of consumption for the
rich are very low compared to working poeple. Keynes
was right. Tax the
rich. Spend the money. That will get the country out of its near-
Depression. Waiting for
the rich to spend it, we will be in a Depression forever.
in 2014, there are
restrictions on how big the rate of profits can be relative to the
total health care
premiums taken in. But what prevents the health insurance companies
from doubling their
executives pay and bonuses to $40 million a year? Or from
and paying their
lobbyists and Congressmen $200 million a year instead of $100 million
in lobbying expense and
campaign contributions? Or from doubling or tripling
the amount of money
they spend on TV ads telling us how wonderful they are?
The answer is NOTHING.
These are "legitimate" expenses. So, just how will the
consumer be better
served under this soi-called reform? And what mechanism
will be in place to
monitor and innvestigate their "expenses"? The Senate Bill
is silent on this.
Needless to say, without a public option, the insurance companies
will be under very
little pressure to keep rates low. In most states, the number of
insurance companies is
very small. Meanwhile, everyone must get insurance.
Who will police the way
monopoly insurance companies behave? How much
they pay their Execs?
How much they for lobbying bribes? Or for slick media
ads that distort and
lie to defeat their opposition. WHY SHOULD people buying
health insurance pay
for any of this FILTH!
Has not the Senate
given Americans the worst of both worlds? Higher private
health insurance rates
which we must now all pay, or be fined!!! How can this
be constitutional?
Will the Senators talk
about the other giveaways, hidden deep in their Bill. The
additional payments to
Doctors? Nebraska has 100% of its Medicaid Insurance
paid by the Fed.
Why is California and New York given the same special treatment?
. Union members' health care will
be taxed under the Senate Bill, instead of there
being a tax on
millionaires as the House version called for.
Want more opinions on
the subject? "Look'y here"
http://www.healthreformwatch.com/2009/05/20/health-insurance-ceos-total-compensation-in-2008/.
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Campaign Contributions to
Senators from Health Insurance Companies Health Sector Campaign Contributions.  http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/06/diagnosis-reform.html Baucus - Health Care's Inside Man Here is an article by Dan Eggen Washington Post July 21, 2009 "As liberal protesters marched outside, Sen. Max Baucus sat down inside a San Francisco mansion for a dinner of chicken cordon bleu and a discussion of landmark health-care legislation under consideration by his Senate Finance Committee. At the table on May 26 were about 20 donors willing to fork over $10,000 or more to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, including executives of major insurance companies, hospitals and other health-care firms. "Most people there had an agenda; they wanted the ear of a senator, and they got it," said Aaron Roland, a San Francisco health-care activist who paid half price to attend the gathering. "Money gets you in the door. The only thing the other side can do is march around and protest outside... "Baucus (D-Mont.) has emerged as a leading recipient of Senate campaign contributions from the hospitals, insurers and other medical interest groups hoping to shape the legislation to their advantage. Health-related companies and their employees gave Baucus's political committees nearly $1.5 million in 2007 and 2008, when he began holding hearings and making preparations for this year's reform debate. "Top health executives and lobbyists have continued to
flock to the senator's often extravagant fundraising events in recent months. During a
Senate break in late June, for example, Baucus held his 10th annual fly-fishing and
golfing weekend in Big Sky, Mont., for a minimum donation of $2,500. Later this month
comes "Camp Baucus," a "trip for the whole family" that adds horseback
riding and hiking to the list of activities. See also - http://www.campaignmoney.com/Health_Insurance.asp
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Here's a
poem I like. It's entitled "Pig Fever" from
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=99744567&blogId=503184798
The swine flu vaccine and what it means to you. The World Health Organization ain’t no Dr. Who. And Briton’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies Sure as fuck ain’t no SAGE when it comes to contingencies Advised by Sir Roy Anderson who is paid by GlaxoSmithKline Profiting 2.1 billion pounds in just three months time Terror, terror everywhere and not a place to speak The CIA in Guantanamo Bay gets on its kinky freak Mercury poisoning and autism for all Homeless, jobless and up against the wall The Great White Hoax in your home town quarantine Roll up your sleeve for the mandatory vaccine England uses the swine flu as a totalitarian tool Commandeering the BBC if they shut down school Providing education as seen fit by skull and bones Making new world order prisons out of family homes Terror, terror everywhere and not a place to speak The CIA in Guantanamo Bay gets on its kinky freak Mercury poisoning and autism for all Homeless, jobless and up against the wall Mandatory health insurance could make it illegal just to live You could sell your kidney, surely you’ve something left to give The NAIS and CODEX makes food against the law When the government steps in to help it’s like the movie Saw Blackwater now called XE will be on hand to assist Corporate fascists in silencing all who would resist Terror, terror everywhere and not a place to speak The CIA in Guantanamo Bay gets on its kinky freak Mercury poisoning and autism for all Homeless, jobless and up against the wall |