(Democrat!) Senator Kay Hagan is key person holding up allowing Public Health option to health insurance in the US

NC Senator Kay Hagan Is The Key Person Holding Up Move to Allow Public Option

By Marsha V. Hammond, PhD: Licensed Psychologist, Asheville, NC

Senator Kay Hagan was ‘carefully’ put into place in order to run against Elizabeth Dole. Guess what: NC Dems now have someone who is less malleable than Dole.

With personal vested interests in the health care industry and a long list of contributions, particularly by the monopolizing BCBSNC, Hagan is a key person holding up the ‘public option’ being made available to Americans as she sits on the influential HELP committee that is currently without the guidance of Senator Ted Kennedy.

Why would the ‘public option’ be good for Americans and in particular people in NC whom, like my family and I, are left with no option but to fund the 5th wealthiest ‘Blue’ with a billion dollar war chest to take down the ‘public option’ ?

Almost 75% of citizens in NC who are insured have BCBSNC. There IS no other viable option, even if one’s family is paying $750/ month/ three healthy members for the BCBSNC Advanta which includes no screening mammograms and no available screening colonscopies.

First of all, as Republicans used to realize prior to becoming the party of the wealthy, competition is good as people can really compare the value of products. Hagan, holding onto her $180,000 personal investment in the private health care industry, as well as her future contributions from BCBSNC, wants to tell us that having a public option would ‘destabilize’ those mom and pop health insurance companies like BCBSNC.

Secondly, we could have cheaper health care as re: a public option as Medicare’s administrative costs are 2% vs BCBSNC administrative costs of 15%.

And here’s stink: Ken Eudy, former chair of the NC Dem Party, best man at BCBSNC CEO recent wedding, is the founder and CEO of Capstrat, which is overseeing the BCBSNC push to sink the public option.

This is gonna cost you the next election, Kay Hagan. But that’s OK: you’ll have a nice appointment to the BCBSNC Board.

Marsha V. Hammond has blogspots associated with documenting problems w/ BCBSNC (http://madamedefarge2scutinizingbcbsnc.blogspot.com/) as well as one overviewing NC Mental Health Reform for the past two years (http://madame-defarge.blogspot.com/)

The Public Health Option: Competition will be GOOD for the $-grabbing Private Health Care Industry

Controlling health care costs isn't just necessary for the health of our economy -- it also likely to boost personal incomes.

Sent to you by David Byrom, Ph.D.:
Got Health Insurance? Fighting for a Public Option Might Just Get You a Raise!
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

Posted on June 29, 2009, Printed on June 29, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/140960/

The best argument for overhauling our ridiculously expensive and dysfunctional health care system -- an argument one doesn't often hear in the corporate media -- is that fixing it would put more dollars in your pocket, even if you already have health coverage.

If there's enough pressure on Congress, we'll add a well-designed public insurance option to the current mix of private insurance and government health care programs. It would be like (the highly popular) Medicare program, but open to all comers. We'd end up with a very large insurance pool that would lower costs through efficiencies of scale. The plan would be able to drive a hard bargain with providers and cut down on overhead costs, which amount to about 30 percent of spending in the U.S. right now.

And it wouldn't just contain costs. A publicly administered insurance program would also protect Americans from the kind of health insurance nightmares we hear about so frequently, with families bankrupted by out-of-pocket expenses or stuck in jobs and relationships they hate in order to hold on to their insurance....

See entire article at: http://www.alternet.org/story/140960/

Senator Hagan, like Joe Lieberman, increase their personal health insurance market share by denying public option

What Senator Kay Hagan says:

nothing on her web page about her key position on the HELP committee which will allow movement towards national health insurance and the 'public option' or not...........and she has $180,000 her own monies (if not more) invested in the health care industry as per the Washington Post..................

HOWEVER, her stance appears to be in keeping w/ Joe Liberman's---- whose wife has profited by working as (one of those) consultants re: private health care:

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Hadassah has worked for the lobbying company, APCO Associates, that had many pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations among its clients, as well as four major drug companies such as Pfizer. In March 2005, Hadassah was hired by Hill & Knowlton (another healthcare lobbyist) as "senior counselor" in the firm's "health care and pharmaceuticals practice." Hadassah's close relationship with pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations while her husband introduced legislation benefiting these exact companies has raised questions about improprieties and conflict of interest. (Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadassah_Lieberman --though there are substantially more sources for her and Joe's perfidy.)But it's all the same, what Lee Stranahan illustrates -- follow the money and you'll learn why healthcare reform (to say nothing of public option) is opposed so adamantly by those who "work with the public's interest at heart."

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Run time: 00:42http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6CP4ieRiV0 Posted on YouTube: June 29, 2009By YouTube Member: StranahanViews on YouTube: 309 Posted on DU: June 29, 2009By DU Member: Eric J in MNViews on DU: 513 Video by Lee Stranahan.Lieberman says he's against a public option to compete with a public plan because there is already enough competition.However, there has been consolidation in the health insurance industry.

Senator Hagan: protecting her own $180,000 in private insurance company investments

In the best of all possible worlds, we would have people who are public servants who do not have vested, selfish interests that they protect. Would that we lived in that place.

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from: NC Health Report/ Adam Searing

Senator Kay Hagan is unsure whether she wants a public health care option in national health reform or what it means.

Call Senator Hagan at 1-877-852-9462 (toll free) or 202-224-6342 and tell her exactly what it means:

1. It means a real alternative health insurance plan for NC families if people are sick of NC Blue Cross and want another option.
NC Blue Cross insures 3.7 million people out of the 5 million with private health insurance in North Carolina. With 75% of the overall market, NC Blue enjoys a virtual monopoly in our state - especially in the small business and individual markets where their share of business is even higher. Don't North Carolinians - especially individuals and small business owners - deserve more choice?

2. It means discipline and cost control for private insurers.
Nonprofit NC Blue Cross paid its CEO $3.99 million last year after he got a $759,000 raise. If NC Blue had to compete with a health plan that didn't pay its executives such high salaries perhaps they'd be a little more careful with our premium dollars.

3. So-called compromises like "health co-ops" or state public plans won't work.
These are smaller entities that are being put forward as a substitute for the public plan. But the whole point of the public plan is to put pressure on insurers, drug companies, and others to lower costs because of its nationwide reach and buying power. Without a true nationwide public plan we can't keep down costs - which is the whole point.

Want it on video? See Adam Searing and President Obama each explain why a public health care option is crucial for health reform.

Call Senator Hagan at 1-877-852-9462 (toll free) or 202-224-6342 and tell her North Carolinians need a real public health care option.