When Your Health Comes Between The Insurance Industry And Its Profits : (

[BLUSH]

HOWARD DEAN: "Well, again, we talked a little bit about that. The only place that there’s a bureaucrat between you and your doctor right now is in the private health insurance industry. It does not happen in the government-, public-run option."

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/17/gov_howard_dean_o...


Who does this Howard Dean think he is!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. When your health comes between the insurance industry and

their profits...

YOU LOSE.

No question.

No way around it.

PERIOD.


K&R

[BLUSH]

2. Who should "lose" ...

Some of the Blue Dogs if they screw this thing up.



Max Baucus Is Ready to Sell Meaningful Reform Down the River. Let Him Know You Won't Stand for It.
By Susie Madrak

Tuesday Jul 28, 2009 12:00pm

See, here's the thing about the very concept of "bipartisan" compromise: The only Republican officials left are from the far fringe of their party. So you really can't negotiate with them in any meaningful sense - you can only capitulate.

And that's pretty much what the members of Max Baucus's little private party have done. They've stripped anything resembling real competition from their secret healthcare proposal. I wonder why Republicans are running this process? (And please note: not one member of this cabal is a progressive, nor from an urban area. Not quite representative of the rest of us, wouldn't you say?)

This would be a very good day to flood the offices of Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the Democrats slicing and dicing away our future, with PHONE CALLS (not emails) telling them you want a strong public option - unlike President Obama, apparently.

continued ...

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/test-4

[BLUSH]

3. Health Insurance Stocks Soar on Baucus Deal News

Health Insurance Stocks Soar on Baucus Deal News

Tuesday July 28, 2009

News that Senator Max Baucus' Finance Committee deal on health care financing excluded a public option sent health insurance stocks soaring Tuesday.

Shares of U.S. health insurers rose broadly on Tuesday on hopes a health reform bill would not include a government-run option, which has drawn strong opposition from insurers who fear it would destroy the private marketplace.

The S&P Managed Health Care index of large U.S. health insurers closed 6.5 percent higher.

Aetna rose 12.6 percent, Coventry was up 12.7 percent and Cigna was 7.7 percent higher, all on the New York Stock Exchange. Centene rose 7.9 percent.

Health insurance executives who have poured money into the campaign coffers of Blue Dogs, Max Baucus, Chuck Grassley, Kent Conrad, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins (as well as their political action committees) likely made all their money back in the one day rise in stock prices. The companies themselves, which hold huge amounts of their own stock, surely recouped all of their PAC investments on Tuesday alone.

You don't have to wonder whether Wall Street thinks Max Baucus' deal is great news for the health insurance industry's status quo: numbers like these don't lie.

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/07/28/health-i... /


Max Baucus ... not letting anything stand between the health insurance industry that lobbies him and its profits!

You, go, Max!

[BLUSH]

4. Just Leave The Insurance Companies Alone!!!

Leave The Insurance Companies Alone!!!




Executive Salaries of Insurance Companies

Jul 27, 2009

H. Edward Hanway, Chair/CEO, Cigna Corp., $30.16 million

Ronald A. Williams, Chair/CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834 (2007)

David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million

Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million

Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc., $20.06 million

Jay M. Gellert, President/CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million

Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529 (2007)

Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp., (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million (in 2007; up 78% from 2006)

Angela F. Braly, President/CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771

Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp., $8,750,751 (2007)

Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825 (2006)

Cleve Killingsworth, Pres/CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million (2007)

William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits

Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555 (2006)

Charlie Baker, President/CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million (2006)

James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million (2006)

Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc., $ 1,061,513 (2007)

http://www.prosperityagenda.us/node/1041

[GiveMeFreedom]

5. I am suicidal

Just need help

[BLUSH]

6. Huh?

?

[GiveMeFreedom]

7. I am trying to reach out ....I had been contemplating

I am trying to reach out ....I had been contemplating suicide. The skull chatter is becoming overwhelming. I went to a therapist today and will see a doc on Friday to get something to calm me down. I could not focus my thoughts,my chest would tighten, breathing was sometimes in gasps, anxiety attacks, sleeping all the time to shut down, anger, depression, hyper focus and unmoving for hours, the usual suspects. But I know not to do this, for I am married and have two sons. However, if it was not for them, I would be gone, no reason to stick around. I have no real friends, no job since winter of 2007, about to run my unemployment claim out. No future. No one needs a heavy equipment operator, a good one. No roads, no work. I am in a union, but their are 400+ guys on the out of work list. I am going to school to get a degree (at 51 years of age?)in the only thing I know, Construction Management, but will not graduate until August 2011. I can tell the difference between a motor grader and a paddle wheel, a ginnie and surveyor stake,do takeoffs and quantify, even run the paver to pave the road after I engineer and stabilize the sub grade with all the machines necessary to do that kind of work and operate all of them with the skill only a person of 30 years could master. Even tell you how much it'll cost. But no one needs construction workers like me, to smart for my own good. I don't like corporate schmucks who lie to rank and file members and I have told them that to their face. Never been fired because of that, I was too valuable to be laid off for a slight misunderstanding like that. I have made contractors millions of dollars and am considered an artist of sorts. But no work is no work and even contractors are starting to really hurt. I noticed my doctors office has new employees though, hope the roads they drive on deteriorate to cattle trails, then when it rains, we'll see who needs who. I know none of this makes sense, as I am very scattered right now. Hope? I don't know.

edit to=too

[BLUSH]

8. I'm so sorry to hear about what you are going through

It sounds like you need a lot of support and DU is one place where there's a lot of support to go around.

I think the your reply above should have its own thread so you can get the FULL DU attention and all the responses DUers have to offer. There are a lot of smart and caring people here (and I'm sure a few who are therapists) and you'll get a lot of feedback and support.

I know most of the personal stuff belongs in the lounge, but when it's really serious -- and depression and suicide, in my mind, are SERIOUS -- it's best to post in the General Discussion. I encourage you to go there and start your own thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

(((((GiveMeFreedom)))))

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. GiveMeFreedom, we are very concerned to hear your state of mind

It's good that you saw a therapist yesterday, and will see a doctor on Friday (though if you can possibly see them today, that might be even better).

If you want to talk to anyone before you see your doctor (or after it) about this, we recommend you phone this number:

1-800-784-2433

where you can talk to trained counsellors about this. In the mean time, it's probably better that DUers do not offer you counselling themselves - this should always come from people trained in it, and we can't vouch for the training of DU members. I hope you understand.

All the best,
The DU moderators.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Locking

Because of the personal situation of a member raised in a couple of the posts above, the moderators feel it's best if this thread is closed to further comment.

Please feel free to post the original post again, to restart discussion on it.

Thank you for your understanding.

The DU Moderators.