Health Insurance

The ‘Silent Violence’ Of Corporate Greed And Power

December 7, 2024 Ralph Nader. Educate! Class Struggle, Corporate greed, Health Care, Health Insurance

For decades consumer groups have been sounding clarion calls for action against the “silent violence” causing massive casualties that arise from the unbridled power of corporate greed, criminal negligence or indifference. They cite statistical and case studies that the media and lawmakers mostly ignored or relegated to low levels of enforcement. Corporate bosses just have their corporate lawyers and public relations hacks brush away such warnings and pleas. One day stories they knew would not have legs if they just kept quiet or mumbled some general words of regret, promising some vague improvements to their products and services.

UnitedHealth’s Playbook For Limiting Coverage Puts Countless People At Risk

November 20, 2024 Annie Waldman, ProPublica. Educate! Denials, health, Health Insurance, Insurance, mental health, UnitedHealthcare

For years, it was a mystery: Seemingly out of the blue, therapists would feel like they’d tripped some invisible wire and become a target of UnitedHealth Group. A company representative with the Orwellian title “care advocate” would call and grill them about why they’d seen a patient twice a week or weekly for six months. In case after case, United would refuse to cover care, leaving patients to pay out-of-pocket or go without it. The severity of their issues seemed not to matter. Around 2016, government officials began to pry open United’s black box.

In Vermont, Where Almost Everyone Has Insurance, Many Can’t Get Care

November 8, 2024 Phil Galewitz, MedPage Today. Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Profiteers, Vermont

On a warm autumn morning, Roger Brown walked through a grove of towering trees whose sap fuels his maple syrup business. He was checking for damage after recent flooding. But these days, his workers' health worries him more than his trees'. The cost of Slopeside Syrup's employee health insurance premiums spiked 24% this year. Next year it will rise 14%. The jumps mean less money to pay workers, and expensive insurance coverage that doesn't ensure employees can get care, Brown said. "Vermont is seen as the most progressive state, so how is healthcare here so screwed up?"

Inside The Company Helping America’s Biggest Health Insurers Deny Coverage

October 24, 2024 T. Christian Miller, Patrick Rucker and David Armstrong, ProPublica. Educate! health, Health Care, Health Insurance, Profiteers

Every day, patients across America crack open envelopes with bad news. Yet another health insurer has decided not to pay for a treatment that their doctor has recommended. Sometimes it’s a no for an MRI for a high school wrestler with a strained back. Sometimes for a cancer procedure that will help a grandmother with a throat tumor. Sometimes for a heart scan for a truck driver feeling short of breath. But the insurance companies don’t always make these decisions. Instead, they often outsource medical reviews to a largely hidden industry that makes money by turning down doctors’ requests for payments, known as prior authorizations. Call it the denials for dollars business.

Health Insurance Claim Denied?

May 13, 2023 Maya Miller, Pro Publica. Resist! Appeals, Denials, Health Care, Health Insurance

When a health insurance company is deciding whether to pay for your medical treatment, the company generates a file around your claim. All the records associated with your case should be part of your file. This includes documents explaining the reasons your claim was denied. You have a right to see this file. Federal regulations require most health insurance plans to give people an opportunity to review documents related to their claim for free. So if your insurer talks to your doctor, if a nurse takes notes, or if two people speak about it on the phone, all of those records should be available to you.

How Cigna Saves Millions By Rejecting Claims Without Reading Them

March 25, 2023 Patrick Rucker, Maya Miller and David Armstrong, ProPublica. Educate! Cigna, Health Care, Health Insurance, Maryland

When a stubborn pain in Nick van Terheyden’s bones would not subside, his doctor had a hunch what was wrong. Without enough vitamin D in the blood, the body will pull that vital nutrient from the bones. Left untreated, a vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis. A blood test in the fall of 2021 confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis, and van Terheyden expected his company’s insurance plan, managed by Cigna, to cover the cost of the bloodwork. Instead, Cigna sent van Terheyden a letter explaining that it would not pay for the $350 test because it was not “medically necessary.” The letter was signed by one of Cigna’s medical directors, a doctor employed by the company to review insurance claims.

Report Shows Big Insurance Profiting Massively From Medicare Privatization

February 28, 2023 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Medicaid, Medicare

A new analysis released Monday shows that insurance giants are benefiting hugely from the accelerating privatization of Medicare and Medicaid, which for-profit companies have infiltrated via government programs such as Medicare Advantage. According to the report from Wendell Potter, a former insurance executive who now advocates for systemic healthcare reform, government programs are now the source of roughly 90% of the health plan revenues of Humana, Centene, and Molina. Over the past decade, Potter found, the seven top for-profit insurance companies in the U.S.—the three mentioned above plus UnitedHealth, Cigna, CVS/Aetna, and Elevance—have seen their combined revenues from taxpayer-backed programs soar by 500%, reaching $577 billion in 2022 compared to $116.3 billion in 2012.

Universal Health Care Could Have Saved US Lives During COVID

June 14, 2022 Rachel Nuwer, Scientific American. Educate! COVID-19, Deaths, Health Insurance, universal healthcare

Americans spend more on health care than people in any other nation. Yet in any given year, the piecemeal nature of the American medical insurance system causes many preventable deaths and unnecessary costs. Not surprisingly, COVID-19 only exacerbated this already dire public health issue, as evidenced by the U.S.’s elevated mortality, compared with that of other high-income countries. A new study quantifies the severity of the impact of the pandemic on Americans who did not have access to health insurance. According to findings published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, from the pandemic’s beginning until mid-March 2022, universal health care could have saved more than 338,000 lives from COVID-19 alone.

High-Deductible Health Plans Make Income Inequality Worse

May 9, 2022 Mark Kreidler, Capital and Main. Educate! Class Struggle, Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Health Insurance

Anyone holding a high-deductible health plan understands the dynamic: When it costs more for people to access health care, they’re going to think twice before using it. It’s a system designed to hold down costs by discouraging service. But there’s something even more insidious about such plans. For lower income California families already living paycheck to paycheck, a single medical need can sink them deeper into financial peril. This type of health care keeps poor people poor. That is precisely what worries Malissa Sanchez, whose employer in Los Angeles essentially forced a high deductible health plan (HDHP) on her in April when it eliminated a direct-payment system that previously allowed her to buy her own coverage. “The new plan just isn’t as good,” said Sanchez, 30.

How Many More People Have To Die Before We Pass Medicare For All?

March 26, 2021 Phil Ateto, Commondreams. Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Medicare for all

I recently joined Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Debbie Dingell (D-MI) as they introduced the Medicare for All Act of 2021 in Congress. For me and millions of Americans, this bill’s passage would not only be life-changing—it could be life-saving. In 2010, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer that affects the bone marrow and makes it harder for my body to fight infections. Before I was diagnosed, I was an average 30-something guy who went to the gym and ate right. Today, after 11 years with this disease, I’m still fighting for my life.

More Than 14 Million May Have Lost Health Coverage

November 10, 2020 Samantha Liss, Health Care Dive. Educate! Health Insurance, Recession, Unemployment, Uninsured

In the latest analysis, researchers first tried to assess how many workers and dependents relied on job-based coverage as of March 2019. Then, using data from the Labor Department, they estimated how many workers lost jobs and how many of those had employer-based coverage. Researchers examined this information by industry, age and gender. Some industries were affected more than others and a few were almost spared entirely. "As a result, we would expect the number of people losing jobs with [employer-sponsored insurance] to vary greatly by industry, and possibly by other characteristics, such as age and gender," according to the report.

Laid-Off Hotel Workers Rally After Health Insurance Yanked

October 26, 2020 Mitch Dudek, Chicago Sun Times. Resist! Chicago, COVID-19, Health Insurance, Hotel workers

About 150 hotel workers who’d been laid off — but promised their jobs back when the hotel industry rebounds — gathered in Grant Park Friday to call on their employers to continue providing health insurance. They are among about 7,000 Chicago hotel workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 1 who are out of work, most since March. Their health insurance lasted until Oct. 1, and workers are now calling on hotel operators to extend benefits.

Insulin Copay Caps Fall Short, Fuel Underground Exchanges

October 9, 2020 Markian Hawryluk, Kaiser Health News. Educate! COVID-19, health, Health Insurance, Insulin

Denver - D.j. Mattern had her Type 1 diabetes under control until COVID’s economic upheaval cost her husband his hotel maintenance job and their health coverage. The 42-year-old Denver woman suddenly faced insulin’s exorbitant list price — anywhere from $125 to $450 per vial — just as their household income shrank. She scrounged extra insulin from friends, and her doctor gave her a couple of samples. But as she rationed her supplies, her blood sugar rose so high her glucose monitor couldn’t even register a number. In June, she was hospitalized.

Tens Of Millions More Expected To Lose Employer-Based Insurance

September 29, 2020 Julia Conley, Commondreams. Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Medicare for all, Unemployment

While for-profit health insurers have reported record-high earnings this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, small companies across the U.S. are reporting difficulty paying premiums for their employees—and tens of millions of workers are expected to lose their employer-based health insurance by the end of the year, even if they keep their jobs. The New York Times reported on Monday that although some small businesses were able to use funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to cover their employees' health benefits, nearly a third of employers reported to Harvard Business School researchers...

Testing And Medical Insurance: A Profitable Disaster

August 15, 2020 Sara Founders, Workers.org. Educate! COVID-19, Health Insurance, Profiteers, Public Health

In the midst of a capitalist crash and an out-of-control health crisis, two mega-industries that bear a heavy burden of responsibility for the health disaster are reporting soaring profits. “The nation’s leading health insurers are experiencing an embarrassment of profits,” reported the New York Times Aug. 6. “Anthem, Humana and United Health Group second quarter earnings are double what they were a year ago.” The U.S. has the world’s highest number of COVID-19 cases, over 5 million, and the highest number of deaths. In addition, millions of laid-off workers are losing health insurance.

«1 2 3 4 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources