Archive for health insurance

Video- Fox’s Huckabee Compares Insurance For Pre-Existing Conditions To Insurance For Burnt-Down House, Totalled Car

Yeah, exactly the same Mikey. Via MM.

Hey, Anthem Blue Cross: “Nothing else I purchase increases in cost this much.”

Because I will be using #My2K to pay for my second double-digit Anthem Blue Cross premium increase (25%), I felt compelled to post this L.A. Times letter to the editor, because our voices matter:

Re “Anthem plans average rate hike of 18%,” Business, Nov. 28

Anthem Blue Cross’ spokesman may blame his company’s rising costs on the economic downturn, which he says causes people to avoid buying insurance. But as a longtime Anthem policyholder, that’s not the reason I’ve thought about dropping coverage. Plain and simple, it’s Anthem’s double-digit rate increases. Nothing else I purchase increases in cost this much.

Not too long ago, I received a tiny refund check because Anthem failed to meet the minimum requirement that 80% of premiums go toward medical costs. Maybe Anthem should start getting more efficient before blaming everyone else for why policyholders are leaving.

Steven Coker

Los Angeles

New Hampshire tea party member: “I hope the (5 Supremes) get colon cancer.”

Hey GOP, if you think you’re the party of “family values” and “pro life”, you might want to take a harder look at yourselves and at what the Merrimack Patch is reporting about one of your New Hampshire tea bagger pals:

Former Town Councilor Mike Malzone, the founder of the Merrimack Tea Party, said Thursday in a Facebook post reacting to the Supreme Court ruling on health care, “I hope the (5 supremes) get colon cancer.”

A day after posting the message, Malzone said he stands by what he said. He clarified that he doesn’t want anyone to die, and the cancer reference was more to make a point that he wants them to feel the pain being inflicted on Americans being overburdened by taxes.

“I didn’t wish for anyone to die, but I said I do wish for them to feel our pain,” he said. “No one cares about me, they all make their promises and then go do what they goddamn feel.”

Sure, that makes sense… because the pain and suffering from colon cancer is identical to paying a penalty fee of  $95.

He posted that message on the Merrimack Tea Facebook page.

At the end of his post, he apologized to his followers for the strong language he used, but several people who responded told him no apology was necessary.

Apologies are never necessary when offensive language is directed at those with whom you disagree. Of course, had someone wished him terminal illness, Malzone would be on his soap box screaming bloody murder, demanding retribution!

Okay now, think… think… who was it that came up with this individual mandate/tax penalty health care plan in the first place? Oh that’s right, one Willard M. Romney did. What does Malzone wish on him?

Oh, but hey, let’s be fair, I’m sure he’s really, really sorry, right?

“I apologized to the people that do follow me, for my language. To the people that have done this to us, I don’t apologize. But I do apologize to the people who follow me if I offended them.”

As Think Progress notes, “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who joined the majority opinion, was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999 and had pancreatic cancer ten years later.”

Will he apologize to Justice Ginsburg “if” he offended her? And yes, that was rhetorical.

VIDEO: Daily Show hammers CNN, Fox for erroneous “unconstitutional mandate hyperventilation” over Supreme Court decision

 

Jon Stewart in full mockitude mode:

“CNN, pobre CNN, they went… seven full minutes of unconstitutional mandate hyperventilation.”

“Yes. How will the *administration* recover after this incredibly public blow to their credibility?”

“There’s what you’ve been saying… and then there’s what happened.”

Another utterly hilarious video of pure snarkitude about the ClusterFox/CNN mega-oopsies can be seen here.

Koch-backed group launches $9 million ad campaign against health law; time to debunk their lies.

Out here in California, I’ve been seeing anti-EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) ad after anti-EPA ad on the Tee Vee machine, sponsored by guess who? The coal industry! Surprise! That has to cost them a pretty penny (and a dirty one).

Now I see the Kochs are walloping the Affordable Care Act with attack ads, and why not? They’ve got millions upon millions to burn, so why not start smearing and lying now?  Via The Hill:

A conservative advocacy group closely aligned with the Tea Party announced a $9 million swing-state push against President Obama and the healthcare law.

The announcement by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which is largely funded by the conservative Koch brothers, comes one day after the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the vast majority of the law in a major coup for Obama.

Know what AFP President Tim Phillips said after the court ruling? “This is far from over.”

Fine with us. If the GOP wants this to be an issue, let’s make it one. We can start with educating voters the way the president did the other day.

A-a-and here come the lies:

The television ad calls the health law “one of the largest tax increases in history” — a refrain expected to form the foundation of GOP arguments against the law as the election draws near.

Shouldn’t President Obama’s priorities have been creating jobs and ending reckless spending?” the ad’s narrator says.

Time to set the record straight. First let’s address the tax increase:

Obamacare includes the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history. According to the independent Congressional Budget Office, 19 million people will receive tax credits worth an average of about $4,800 each to help them afford health care. These tax credits will finally put health insurance within reach for millions of American families.

Psst! KochHeads! It’s not a tax increase. And the penalty is not large by any stretch of the imagination: 

The annual penalty is capped at an amount roughly equal  to the cost of the national average premium for a qualified health plan — in other words you cannot be forced to pay more than it would have cost to buy a plan in the first place.

Flat dollar amount for individuals:  $95 in 2014; $325 in 2015; and $695 in 2016; increases indexed to inflation after that, subject to a cap.

Hey, I know! They can call it a flat tax! Then they’d be all for it! Oh, but I kid the RWNJs.

And they might try addressing those vehemently anti-tax comments to their own candidate, since Willard Romney fully supported the same thing he’s now against in his plan-with-mandate-and-tax-penalty, too:

As for creating jobs, the president’s got that covered, by way of over 4 million private sector jobs; the economy has already added more jobs than in Bush’s first three years in office combined.

Those on the right are telling lies, lies, and more lies. Of course, Team Romney and his supporters would have you believe otherwise. But you know what they say:

VIDEO: Hypocrite Mitt Romney’s health care mandate included tax penalty

“There are a number of ways to encourage people to get insurance and what we did, we said ‘you’re going to lose a tax exemption if you don’t have insurance’… you gotta have health insurance because we want everybody in the system. No more free riders.”

This minor little point (sarcasm) has barely been covered on the Tee Vee machine. I’m betting most people don’t know that Willard Romney’s health care plan included a tax penalty. He supported that tax, the same one he’s against now. In fact, his were bigger.

Read my lips.

Equally frustrating, most people don’t know what’s in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, because if they did, they’d likely support it just as they did Romney’s plan-with-mandate-and-tax-penalty.

And yes, more needs to be done, but at least ACA is a start.

So for those who were still unaware, CNN fills you in on what a lying hypocrite Willard is:

In a 2009 interview with CNN, Romney explained how the Massachusetts health care mandate worked. If the state’s residents decided to forgo health insurance when they could afford it, Romney said they would face the loss of a tax exemption. In other words, they would be assessed a tax. [...]

During the interview Romney held up his health care law as a model that “could inform Washington on ways to improve health care for all Americans.

Do as I say Etch A Sketch, not as I did. What a pandering fraud this guy is.

Middle Aged, Oppose SIngle Payer Insurance? Take Your Parents Off Medicare, Pay for Their Medical Bills Yourself

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout, via my pal Mark Karlin:

[T]o Tea Party advocates and other Americans who have parents on Medicare, but who in their middle age oppose improving healthcare insurance – for even themselves (out of ignorance, it appears). To those middle age Americans with such an outlook, we ask that you remove your parents from Medicare and pay for their healthcare yourselves. Because we don’t want to make a hypocrite out of you on our tax dollars by providing socialized medicine to your parents while you denounce it in principle.

And while you are at it, if you oppose medical care for all Americans, please sign a pledge – and this applies to all of you under 65 who oppose a single payer system – that you will not apply for Medicare when you turn 65 – and that you will not ask the US government to pay for your healthcare in your senior years.

And to those who oppose the partial healthcare reform bill that was upheld yesterday by the Supreme Court, we ask that you not put any of your children over the age of 19 on your insurance policy; we ask that you or anyone in your family who has a pre-existing condition not be covered; we ask that you be charged for preventative healthcare which the new law provides free; and we ask that you inform your insurance company that you do not want your lifetime coverage to be unlimited but you would prefer to pay all charges above a current lifetime insurance company imposed cap. [...]

[W]e ask that if you lose your job, you accept that you have no health insurance and incur massive debt if you need coverage; we ask that if you are an employer who will now be getting a tax credit for providing healthcare insurance to employees that you refuse to take the tax credit under the new law; and we ask that you if become extremely sick and are tossed off your insurance that you accept your fate and abide by your principles and pay for your care and your growing debt.

Please read the rest here.