The Republicans keep talking about how we should let the insurance companies fix the healthcare problem. Well we have had a good test run of that when the Republican designed Medicare system went into effect last year. The results are disgusting:
Tens of thousands of Medicare recipients have been victims of deceptive sales tactics and had claims improperly denied by private insurers that run the system’s huge new drug benefit program and offer other private insurance options encouraged by the Bush administration, a review of scores of federal audits has found.
The problems, described in 91 audit reports reviewed by The New York Times, include the improper termination of coverage for people with H.I.V. and AIDS, huge backlogs of claims and complaints, and a failure to answer telephone calls from consumers, doctors and drugstores.
Medicare officials have required insurance companies of all sizes to fix the violations by adopting “corrective action plans.†Since March, Medicare has imposed fines of more than $770,000 on 11 companies for marketing violations and failure to provide timely notice to beneficiaries about changes in costs and benefits.
Now is sounds like the government is trying to fix this – after all they are fining 11 companies $770,000. The problem is that these companies consider those fines as the cost of doing business. They don’t care about them when they are making billions.
This is also a problem that was raised when the program first started 21 months ago. I blogged about it on numerous occasions. People were signing up for these programs because their prescriptions were listed on that company’s formulary. That was in January of 2006. In February of 2006 those companies changed their formularies so that the drugs people needed weren’t covered and then these people were stuck with that company for a year. It is criminal how these people are acting.
So if you want to see company profits grow at the cost of human life, vote for Republicans. They hate life. They feel life is only good for money. They try to call universal healthcare “socialism”. Well if socialism is defined as a country carrying about the health of their citizens, then I think a majority of this country is socialists, and if that is the case then those who support things the way they are need to be considered terrorists.