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June 11, 2009
Health Insurance Stories
From a health insurance insider:
For two years I was the executive director of MCC-Wichita, a managed mental health (HMO) subsidiary of CIGNA. We did very good work, and we were very profitable (26% the first year, 39%, the second year). I got a new regional manager, who left me alone for a few months before she started throwing darts at me. I sent her a fax, stipulating that my first priority was quality of care, and my second was profitability. She sent me back a fax in which she stated "Only a naive or novice manager would put quality of care as their first priority." Well, there you have it. Insurance companies are about profit; quality of care comes second. That is why we need a government run, single payer system.
Filed under: Healthcare || Healthcare Stories
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Posted By Bob Cesca | June 11, 2009 12:37 PM
Comments
We need to inundate the airwaves with this type of story so that any opposition to a public plan is exposed for what it is.
Posted by: CitizenJ at June 11, 2009 12:53 PM
So they had extremely good profits and still felt the need to put emphasis on profitability over quality.
I guess 39% profit is not enough to keep people's lives at the top of the totem pole.
Posted by: J M Goddamn Ashby at June 11, 2009 1:26 PM
And why is this story not being broadcast live and in color??
Posted by: Matt Osborne at June 11, 2009 2:14 PM
39% is a paltry pittance in the game of rip 'em off health care. Check out the profit margins in the pharmaceutical industry some time. They get government mandated monopolies (called patents) to legally overcharge for the latest and greatest formulations. Yes. Developing new drugs costs money. But when they can afford to spend ten times as much on advertising as they spend on R&D, I am inclined to think that they are overcharging.
Posted by: ∇•B=0 Goddamn Silly Ratfaced Git ∇•D=ρ at June 11, 2009 3:37 PM
30 years ago, my first wife worked in LA for Blue Cross as an adjuster, and the managers were very hard on anyone who was allowing too many claims to go unchallenged, and rewarding those who denied most claims...even valid ones!
Believe it or not, the workers had to raise their hands to go to the bathroom, and were harassed if they took too long!
And this was THIRTY GODDAMN YEARS AGO! Anyone think it's gotten any better in that time?
Posted by: wagonjak at June 11, 2009 3:46 PM
Believe it or not, the workers had to raise their hands to go to the bathroom, and were harassed if they took too long!
a sweatshop by any other name...
Posted by: veralynn at June 11, 2009 4:13 PM
