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"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election; the people who COUNT the votes do." -- Joseph Stalin

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Insurance Executive Admits that the Sick are Dumped


DENIED

It's an undisputed fact that health insurers serve only one purpose - to make money for their owners and shareholders. They do this by using any legal means available (and even some illegal means) to rake in cash from people who rarely get sick and deny coverage to folks who might actually need more than cursory attention. Insurance companies do not care if your daughter has cancer, or if your wife suffers from chronic pain, or if your husband needs an operation to keep him alive. They. Do. Not. Care. Representatives might make soothing noises when they speak to you over the phone, they'll direct you to a clinic or supply you with a list of doctors on the network, some may even express sympathy for your plight. But make no mistake. The health insurance industry is driven by profit, and there's no profit to be had in seeing that seriously ill people receive the treatment they deserve. So they deny coverage.

A retired health insurance executive — in a shocking but not terribly surprising admission — confessed Wednesday that insurance companies deliberately confuse policyholders and attempt to dump sick patients to plump their profit margins.

They confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors,” former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter told senators at a hearing on health insurance Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Potter, who has more than 20 years of experience working in public relations for insurance companies Cigna and Humana, said companies routinely drop seriously ill policyholders so they can meet “Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations,’” Potter told the hearing, according to ABC News.

They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment,” Potter added. “Dumping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line.



DEMAND A PUBLIC HEALTH OPTION


source: RAW STORY

source: THE PROGRESSIVE PUPPY



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