I guess it’s because the corporations aren’t people, just profit-seeking entities. But what about public relations as an engine of profit, as I learned in my (misguided) business school days?

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Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Maine, a subsidiary of WellPoint, the nation’s largest insurer, wanted the state to approve an average rate hike of 18.5 percent on its policyholders. Maine rejected the increase and now the insurer is fighting for the hike in court.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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The protests move on to Chicago n the 6th and the across the U.S. on the 15th.

full news story by David Swanson

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He says Canadian single-payer “works really well if you don’t get too sick.” In fact, it’s the opposite – it works really well if you do get too sick, because you jump to the front of the queue for care… And yes, there is a queue -if it is less serious, you wait some, if it is more serious or life-threatening, you don’t.

The reason this story is unfair goes far beyond the apples and oranges comparison a U.S. ‘public option’ and the Canadian single-payer system. The real problem with the story is the implication that we Canadians are all waiting around for life-saving surgery, or we are heading to the U.S. to get some real care. They cherry pick a few stories that seem to prove their point, but these are people who end up absorbing huge medical bills if they go to the U.S., and thus is only for those with cash to pay for U.S. medical care. These ’sufferers’ in Canada would be suffering much more if they were uninsured or under-insured and in the U.S.

Looking specifically at one of Fox’s cherry-picked subjects, Foreign Affair to Remember comments on how Fox News just keeps bringing out Lin Gilbert from Vancouver. She is poor and had to wait for treatment for her chronic back pain:

So Fox seems to trot out this poor lady, Lin Gilbert, whenever they need a worst-case scenario to spook the population away from any sort of health care change. OK, if you want to talk horror stories, maybe Fox should interview Monique Zimmerman-Stein, who has been nearly blind for the last two years from Stickler syndrome. She recently decided to forego her own treatment to save funds to treat her two daughters, who also suffer from the condition.

And where in Canada does she live? Florida. Watch how the insurance companies treat her and tell me how proud you are of our system.

News Corpse has this to say about Ms. Gilbert back in July:

Lin Gilbert suffered from debilitating back pain that she says was untreated in an untimely manner in her native Vancouver… eventually she got the surgery she needed and is pain free today. It cost her nothing. She has no debt related to her medical treatment. An American with the same problem would still be suffering or would have racked up an unmanageable debt that would haunt them and their family for the rest of their life.

I can’t speak to what delayed the treatments in Canada for these women, but surveys show that they are the exceptions. Most Canadians are satisfied with their healthcare program, with an overwhelming 82% saying that they prefer their system to a private system like that of their neighbors to the south. Furthermore, a Gallup poll showed that Canadians are far more satisfied with their system than we Americans are with ours.

While there is no denying that there are waits in Canada, would Lin Gilbert have even been able to get care if she lived in the U.S.? Fox doesn’t say.

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It is a moveon.org series of rallies focused on the public option, supported by labor and others. These coordinated demonstrations are much needed and I’m glad they are happening, but why will Move On not talk about single-payer?

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With Max Baucus’ disastrous healthcare bill unveiled last week without even providing a weak public option, I agree with Mitchell Bard’s contention that Democrats need to get a backbone and stop trying to woo Republicans.

But I am not convinced that Baucus himself (and many other, though not all, Democrats) has simply been a part of this attempt to find common ground with Republicans in a wrong-headed attempt to compromise that has backfired.  Baucus never, ever showed signs of anything other than being a friend of corporate healthcare.  His Senate hearings in May didn’t include anyone backing single payer, and as made clear by Peter Dreier, two of his former chiefs of staff are now lobbyists for the healthcare industry, he has consistently been against the public option, and is well entrenched in the pockets of the health insurance industry.

With some individual exceptions, the Democratic party is very much a corporate party. It is not simply the good guy who tries to make peace with these over-the-top Republicans in an effort at bi-partisan law making.

And Baucus sits as one of the parties most strident corporate cheerleaders.    If there is some backbone in the Democrats, it won’t come from Baucus.  I am not feeling particularily hopeful, but let’s hope the Dems take Bard’s excellent advice: “Forget Baucus’s bill. Don’t give the Republicans another victory (one which represents a defeat for the American people). Pass meaningful health care reform, even if not a single Republican votes for it.” 

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The Health Insurance Racket: Getting Rich by Denying Americans Care

While your at it, check out their entire website at: www.sickforprofit.com where they have other videos, patient stories, a blog, and profiles of the health insurance CEOs

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How corporate P.R. works to kill healthcare reform by Wendell Potter

It is easy to think of efforts to influence lawmakers as the exclusive domain of K Street lobbyists. Much has been said and written about the millions of dollars the special interests are spending on lobbying activities and the hundreds of lobbyists who are at work as we speak trying to shape healthcare reform legislation. Very little by comparison has been written about the millions of dollars that special interests are spending on P.R. activities to accomplish the same goal and that are vital to successful lobbying efforts.

One of the reasons I left my job at CIGNA, where I headed corporate communications and was part of the Legal & Public Affairs division, was because I did not want to be involved in yet another P.R. and lobbying campaign to kill or gut reform. I finally came to question the ethics of what I had done and been a part of for nearly two decades to influence decision making and bill writing on Capitol Hill.

read more…

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Health Services/HMOs: Long-Term Contribution Trends

Did you notice how the Democrats get even more money from them in 2008 than Republicans did?  Don’t be fooled by the fact that the Republicans are nuttier on the issue, this is a non-partisan fight to protect the industry’s massive profits.

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