This is a long post, but it's very important.
Question for Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck: How else would you describe the following real life story, as documented in Michael Moore's SiCKO?
Transcript of Linda Peeno's testimony to Congress:
My name is Linda Peeno. I am here primarily today to make a public confession: In the Spring of 1987, as a physician, I denied a man a necessary operation that would of saved his life, and thus caused his death. No person, and no group has held me accountable for this, because in fact, what I did was I saved a company a half a million dollars for this. And for the more, this particular act secured my reputation as a good medical director, and it insured my continued advancement in the health care field. I went from making a few hundred dollars a week as a medical reviewer, to an escalating six-figure income as a physician executive. In all my work, I had one primary duty, and that was to use my medical expertise for the financial benefit for the organization which I worked. And I was told repeatedly that I was not denying care, I was simply denying payment. I know how managed care pains and kills patients. So I am here to tell you about the dirty work of managed care. And I'm haunted by the thousands of pieces of paper in which I have written that deadly word, "denied".
And what about the following? Health insurance employees rewarded for denying coverage to sick patients:
Blue Cross of California encouraged employees through performance evaluations to cancel the health insurance policies of individuals with expensive illnesses, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) charged at the start of a congressional hearing today on the controversial practice known as rescission.
The state's largest for-profit health insurer told The Times 18 months ago that it did not tie employee performance evaluations to rescission activity. And executives with Blue Cross parent company WellPoint Inc. reiterated that position today.
Rep. Bart Stupak probes a health insurance executive about these real life death panels:
It's called rescission. Health insurance companies denying coverage to sick people who have otherwise paid their premiums.
Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive. [...]
And finally, there's the following memorandum from the National Down Syndrome Congress (after the jump)...
People with Down syndrome have been and continue to be discriminated against with regard to access to health insurance, solely on the basis of the diagnosis of Down syndrome and without consideration of their individual health status or health histories. For those people with Down syndrome who do have congenital or other health conditions requiring medical intervention, insurance companies have denied them access because of their preexisting conditions.
The NDSC calls for the following reforms:
• Universal access to health care insurance;
• Comprehensive coverage which cannot be denied because of health or disability status;• No pre-existing condition exclusion or waiting periods;
• Portability - one does not lose health insurance if one moves, changes jobs, or loses a position;
• Community rated premiums, that is, health plans must charge everyone the same rate, regardless of health or disability status;
• No lifetime caps on medically necessary and/or covered services;
• Choice of service provider and specialists who are appropriately trained and committed to meeting the medical needs of people with Down syndrome;
• Affordability.
Exactly. But naturally Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich are too focused on scoring political points with their crazy lies and wingnutty theories. So I don't expect them to pay any attention to, you know, reality.