Reply #92: I'll answer your question...

[debbierlus]

In regard to your first comment, it is a good thing that people with preexisting conditions can't be denied insurance because they are sick. However, this bill doesn't prohibit the zillion other tactics the insurance companies use to deny care. For example, my mother just spent over a year fighting to get thousands of dollars of medical tests for my father paid for from her insurance company. The reason for denial - the tests couldn't be given on the same day. It was pure bs. It would actually be MORE expensive to have these test performed on seperate days for the insurance companies because it would mean paying for an additional office visit. The denial had no basis in anything other then being a made up rule to deny paying the claim. My aunt just spent two months fighting her insurance company to receive a second dose of chemotherapy for thyroid cancer. The reason for denial; not medically necessary, according to THEM. The bill does nothing to stop these abuses.

Even if they can't deny a person the right to buy a policy due to one set reason, it does not mean that actual health care can't be denied. It is utter insanity to mandate people to buy a insurance policy that can deny coverage when it is needed.

In regard to your question, the insurance companies WROTE this legislation. As did big pharm. And, other large corporate interests in the health care industry. They were the ones who were invited to the Senate Finance Hearing committee while the doctors and nurses who showed up protesting for ONE representative for single payer were arrested. The President met behind closed doors with big pharm and struck deals that basically allow them to charge mafia type prices for prescription drugs and extend patents to keep generics off the market. Here is a post link and comment from July regarding this issue:


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/debbierlus/28 ... (lots more at actual link)

(note the original link from yahoo is expired but I cut and pasted the story into the post)....

Here is the specific comment relevant to your claim from a health industry insider....

"There is a way out of it — a bipartisan compromise_ but so far the liberals have found that to be anathema," said Robert Laszewski, a health care industry consultant.

Laszewski is pessimistic about the prospects for overhaul legislation this year. But he thinks insurers in particular look like they're in a win-win situation.

"The health insurance industry is in a fantastic position," he said. Democratic liberals overreached and can't move a bill over the objections of their moderate and conservative colleagues.

"Democrats can't blame the industry if this goes down," Laszewski added. "So the health insurance industry is happy to let this thing take its course."

......The health insurance companies are fighting because they don't want even the paltry and toothless legislation that is in this bill to dictate how they rape the consumers of money. That is why you see ads against the bill. However, that does not change the fact that this legislation was crafted by them, for them, and largely benefits THEM. They only got 95% of their terms met, not the 100% they wanted, so they are protesting. That doesn't make it a good bill for the people.