Big Pile On Against BCBSNC: State Employees Association of NC Whams BCBSNC

(I think, maybe, that BCBSNC got more than it bargained for when it decided to use our money to pay for postcards to be sent to Senator Kay Hagan so that she would not vote for the public option....):

From the State Employees Association of NC:

http://www.stopbcbs.com/

"....To protect its virtual monopoly on North Carolina's health insurance industry, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina spent untold thousands of our insurance premium dollars mailing postcards to hardworking citizens to pressure Senator Kay Hagan into opposing health care reform which would create competition and reduce your health insurance costs.

The "non-profit" Blue Cross and Blue Shield virtual monopoly earned $186 million in profits for 2008 - and paid their CEO nearly $4 million.» View document

Why BCBS controls over 70% of our state's health insurance market. Their profits have driven up health care costs and alarmed North Carolina's citizens and lawmakers. Big health insurance monopolies like BCBS bitterly oppose a public option needed to increase competition and put a lid on their corporate profits at the expense of ordinary working people and businesses....."

Call Senator Hagan & Support her Against BCBSNC Whom is Waging War on Her

Here's her D.C. number: 202 224 6342. They'll ask for your zip code.

Call Senator Kay Hagan and let her know that you stand behind her re: making competition available for BCBSNC. If they're so good, then they won't mind the competition....for after all, that's what capitalism is supposed to be about. Better yet: take the nasty BCBSNC postcards and send them to Senator Hagan----ON BCBSNC----w/ a comment that you want her to stand up for a public option and competition for BCBSNC.

Here is what BCBSNC is up to re: Senator Hagan:

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2009/10/22/nc-blue-cross-sending-nasty-postcards-opposing-health-reform/

Remember: every nasty postcard that goes back to Senator Hagan is money out of YOUR pocket if you have BCBSNC.

NC Blue Cross Sending Nasty Postcards Opposing Health Reform
Posted at 5:57 PM by Adam Searing
NC Blue Cross is sending postcards around the state. The goal? Get people to fill them out and send to Senator Hagan to oppose a “government-run” health plan. Of course, what Blue really wants is not to compete with a public option health plan, despite their 96.8% individual market share and billions in reserves. This sort of nasty, last-ditch effort to oppose real health reform is just what you would expect from the company who brought you the $3.99 million nonprofit CEO salary.

More Rallies in NC for People Who Have Died Because They Have No Health Insurance

PRAYER SERVICE, Thursday October 29th: You and your congregation are invited to join the NC Council of Churches and others in the faith community on Thursday, October 29 from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. for an interfaith service of prayer and remembrance for those who have suffered or lost their lives due to lack of access to health care. It will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh at 3313 Wade Avenue. Contact: NC Council of Churches, nccofc@nccouncilofchurches.org.

Day of the Dead: those who died because they had no health care

Florida Representative (D) Alan GRAYSON Launches Website To Honor, Name Those Dead From Lack Of HealthCare :

http://namesofthedead.com/

"Every year, more than 44,000 Americans die simply because they have no health insurance.
I have created this project in their memory. I hope that honoring them will help us end this senseless loss of American lives. If you have lost a loved one, please share the story of that loved one with us. Help us ensure that their legacy is a more just America, where every life that can be saved will be saved."

Read more here as it was picked up by The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/21/grayson-launches-site-to_n_328956.html

"I think it dishonors all those Americans who have lost their lives because they had no health coverage, by ignoring them, by not paying attention to them, and by doing nothing to change the situation that led them to lose their lives," the congressman explained. "So I make this simple proposal. I propose that we identify them. I propose that we honor their memory by naming them. They themselves can no longer speak. But their families, the ones who love them, they can speak. And so I have established a website called namesofthedead.com."

'In Loving Memory': honoring those who could not find any health care and so died

Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 7pm-8pm, "In Loving Memory" service to pay respects to those who have died from our broken health care system. First Congregational Church of Christ, 20 Oak Street, Asheville (just off College Avenue at the traffic circle). For information contact Rev. Joe Hoffman at 252-8729 or Leslie Boyd at 243-6712.

Asheville Citizen Times' reporter, Leslie Boyd----her son died from colon cancer within the past 5 years. He could find no health care. He was less than 35 years old.

If he had MEDICARE, he could have had a screening colonoscopy. Think about that as you consider the public option.

BCBSNC PPO offers no reimbursed screening colonoscopies in western NC except for ONE PROVIDER, Appalachian Gastroengerology, BOONE, NC which is hours away from Asheville, a major metropolis.

For over $750/ month, my healthy 3 member family, cannot obtain reimburseable mammograms (for me) not screening colonoscopies in a clinic setting, which is the standard of treatment at this time. The closest 'office based' screening colonoscopy is hours away.

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see what Leslie Boyd says about this matter and the picture of her son whom died because he could not afford health care:

http://www.theurbannews.com/content/view/806/5/

"....Mike’s Story

By Leslie Boyd

Every year in America, some 30,000 people die prematurely because they don’t have health insurance and the access to health care that comes with it. Last year, one of those people was my son.

He was at high risk of colon cancer because of a birth defect, but he couldn’t get a doctor in Savannah, Ga., where he lived, to give him a colonoscopy. Several times, even as he began having symptoms, the doctor wrote in his record, “Patient needs a colonoscopy but can’t afford it.”
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WSJ: NC Mental Health Parity to be 'enacted' 7.1.2009: no commemoration but rather weeping would be in order

Dear Mr. Rosomer, reporter for the Winston Salem Journal:

My BCBSNC policy that my healthy 3 member family has for which we pay $750/ month w/ large deductibles and minimal preventive care (no available screening colonoscopies for those over 50---yes, Medicare does this; no mammograms---yes, Medicare does this) pays only 50% for any mental health care.

The administrative costs for BCBSNC are over 15%. The administrative costs for Medicare are about 2-3%.

I therefore believe that your information is erroneous and would be grateful if you would investigate this matter.

Much information on BCBSNC can be found at my blog which I have steadily maintained for the past couple of years (http://madame-defarge.blogspot.com/); there are two blogs: one associated w/ NC Mental Health Reform and the other as associated w/ scrutinizing BCBSNC.

You stated, Mr. Rosomer:

"Published: July 1, 2008

July 7, 2009RE: Commeration of a Bittersweet Victory in NC: http://oneinfour.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/bittersweet-victory-in-nc/

RALEIGH

"Starting today, insurance companies in North Carolina must provide the same level of coverage for some mental illnesses that they do for physical ailments.....

“There are costs, obviously, associated with this mandate, but we’re anticipating it to be less than half of 1 percent,” said Lew Borman, a spokesman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina."
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I do not understand why you are using BCBSNC to indicate cost matters for they are not required to pay attention to mental health parity. In order (I am told) for NC State Representative Martha Alexander and those assisting her, to drive through mental health parity, a 'deal' was struck w/ BCBSNC.

You can look at these Madame Defarge II posts re: that matter:

Item 1:

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

http://madame-defarge.blogspot.com/2009/04/no-mental-health-parity-in-nc-bcbsnc.html

NO Mental Health Parity in NC : BCBSNC makes their own rules (and you'll like it or just shut up, Rep Martha Alexander)

Fitzsimon FileThe special interest health planhttp://www.ncpolicywatch.com/cms/2009/04/08/the-special-interest-health-plan/Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

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Item 2:

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

WaPo: NOW we know why BCBSNC was stockpiling all that money: THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL ACCESS TO PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE

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I would also like to bring your attention to this recent NYT article indicating that the 'fine print' in the private insurance policies continues to drive people into health-related bankruptcy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/business/01meddebt.html

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BCBSNC was allowed by the NC State Legislature to opt out of mental health parity. Over 75% of people who are insured in NC (not including Medicare/ Medicaid) are insured by BCBSNC.

Therefore, there is no bittersweet commemoration but simply failure. We will not get anywhere until there is a public option re: health insurance. THAT and that alone will put the private health insurance companies on notice.

REMEMBER: when one is utilizing a capitalist model, COMPETITION is HEALTHY! (Or did the politicians, Dem and Republican alike, forget that tenet, as they looked simply at the bottom line and watched out for their own profits, much as Senator Kay Hagan is doing in her key position on the HELP Senate Committee which allows the public option matter to go forward---or not?)

Marsha V. Hammond, PhD

Private Health Insurance Companies are dumping the sick who must file for bankruptcy: SADISTIC LIMITED BENEFITS PLANS

I think we can pretty much conclude that this country is too far down the drain to recoup. The powers that be associated w/ the private insurance companies are going to drown us in the bathtub with most everyone looking on and seeing what is happening and there will simply be a stunned sense of 'there was nothing we could do.'

Just because you have health insurance doesn't mean you cannot go bankrupt depending on the DETAILS & FINE PRINT of your PRIVATE health insurance.

There is no better reason than this for the public option. Give it to us, or we'll die.

NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/business/01meddebt.html

Insured, but Bankrupted by Health Crises

Last week, a former Cigna executive warned at a Senate hearing on health insurance that lawmakers should be careful about the role they gave private insurers in any new system, saying the companies were too prone to confuse their customers and dump the sick.

The number of uninsured people has increased as more have fallen victim to deceptive marketing practices and bought what essentially is fake insurance, Wendell Potter, the former Cigna executive, testified.

Mr. Yurdin learned the hard way.

At St. David's Medical Center in Austin, where he went for two separate heart procedures last year, the hospital's admitting office looked at Mr. Yurdin's coverage and talked to Aetna.

St. David's estimated that his share of the payments would be only a few thousand dollars per procedure.

He and the hospital say they were surprised to eventually learn that the $150,000 hospital coverage in the Aetna policy was mainly for room and board. Coverage was capped at $10,000 for other hospital services, which turned out to include nearly all routine hospital care the expenses incurred in the operating room, for example, and the cost of any medication he received.

In other words, Aetna would have paid for Mr. Yurdin to stay in the hospital for more than five months as long as he did not need an operation or any lab tests or drugs while he was there.

Aetna contends that it repeatedly informed Mr. Yurdin and the hospital of the restrictions in policy, which is known in the industry as a limited-benefit plan.

The company says such policies offer value by covering some hospital expenses, like surgeons' fees or a stay in the intensive care unit. Aetna also says all of its policyholders receive significant discounts on the overall cost of hospital care. But Aetna also acknowledges that a limited-benefit plan was inappropriate in Mr. Yurdin's case because his age and condition an irregular heartbeat made him likely to require more comprehensive coverage....."