health care

Media Porn Hides Real Threats to Children

 

 

Who knows if Casey Anthony is guilty or innocent? Even Casey might not know at this point. We do know one thing, without any doubt. As our economy and nation crumble around us, we're being amused to death by the corporate media. They've got good reason to keep the headlines on Casey. Absent a major distraction, there might be a focused look at the misrule and looting of this country for the past decades that has created the real threats to the health of children.

"Infant mortality is an important indicator of the health of a nation, and the recent stagnation (since 2000) in the U.S. infant mortality rate has generated concern among researchers and policy makers." Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, November 2009

 

Screwing the Self-Employed

shrinkmanIt's summer, officially the time for health insurance companies to jack up individual health insurance premiums by double digits. Such is the case of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, about to increase their never ending shrinking health care coverage by 22.1% on average:

Concerns about surging health care costs drove more than 150 people Thursday to hear Oregon's largest health insurer defend its request to raise premiums an average 22 percent.

In the Oregon Insurance Division's first public hearing for a rate request in more than 20 years, administrator Teresa Miller grilled the president of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon.

Then Laura Etherton, a health policy advocate for the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group, urged the division to reject the request.

"It is not justified, and it will only make matters worse," she said.

BlueCross sticks it to the self-employed or any other small business buying individual policies every year, with a never ending shrinking pool of customers, now down to 59,447. They used to cover over 100,000 in Oregon but clearly people are dropping out because they cannot afford the premiums. Even with health insurance, these individual policies do not provide enough coverage.

Saturday Reads Around The Internets - All About the Banks

shocknews
Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.

 

Help For Homeowners Is Only Help For Banks

Whistleblowers are now speaking out on the scam HAMP really is. Instead of helping homeowners is pushing them into foreclosure Dylan Ratigan interviewed the Whistleblowers in the below clip.

 

Killing Us Quickly - Ryan's Medicare Proposal

Michael Collins

We're not worth having around after 65, says Michael Collins. Why else would they want to kill us off?

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed a Medicare plan that combines Social Darwinism and a bailout for health insurance carriers, even larger than the one provided by the president's health care reform legislation.

The specific features of the program are less important than the overall effect. In summary, Ryan proposes a plan that will starve most of those sixty-five and older of health care. Here are the numbers, based on Congressional Budget Office projections and elaborated by Dean Baker and David Rosnick (in 2011 dollars) (Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 2011)

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If You Want to Decrease the Budget Deficit, Decrease Health Care Costs

With the never ending pundit pontificating on the budget deficit and how we must cut spending, it seems always the bulls-eye is on the backs of the U.S. middle class, poor and national interest. Yet, even the Wall Street Journal notes health care costs are out of control. In their number of the week, they amplify the U.S. Spends 141% More on Health Care than other nations.

 

Friday Movie Night - Obama's Deal

 It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

Frontline did a documentary on all of the sleazy backroom deals done to pass Obama's Health Care bill.

The White House encouraged Baucus to quietly negotiate deals with the insurance lobby, drug companies and other special interest groups, despite promises to run a different kind of White House.

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