The Insurance Industry Wants to Push Michael Moore Off a Cliff!

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   Ralph Deedsposted 14 years ago

   AMY GOODMAN: But they were doing an investigation into him personally?
   
   WENDELL POTTER: Well, absolutely. We knew as much about him probably as he knows about himself. [{Potter is a former VP of CIGNA.]
   
   AMY GOODMAN: About his wife, about his kid, about—
   
   WENDELL POTTER: Oh, yeah. You know, it's important to know everything that you might be able to use in some kind of a campaign against someone, to discredit them professionally and often personally.
   
   AMY GOODMAN: And did you use that?
   
   http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/1 … mment-form
   
   WENDELL POTTER: You use it if necessary.
   
   The interview goes on as Potter reveals how his front group was able to get its talking points and smears into stories in the New York Times and CNN. It is a chilling look inside how easy it is to manipulate our mainstream media -- and just how worried the health insurance companies were that the American people might demand a true universal health care system.
   
   
   http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/1 … nt-1670621
   
   When will they ever learn? GM CEO James Roche, accompanied by Ted Sorensen apologized to Congress in 1966 for the VP of the GM legal staff having Ralph Nader tailed by a private investigator in an effort to discover whether Nader was gay or any other dirt they could dig up to discredit him. This incident increased the support for additional auto industry regulations and reduced GM's credibility in Washington to near zero.
   
   http://brightenthecorner.com/blog/

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      Jillian Barclayposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The health insurance industry, for the most part, is big business. The industry is designed to make money and unless they deny care are unable to generate profits. The processes for denial and postponement of care are written in every insurance company manual that is given to each employee. Denial of care has been going on for years. It is not a new concept.  People have just started realizing that there are death panels at insurance companies. These death panels are known as utilization management or utilization review.
      
      For example, every curative surgical procedure (let's assume cardiac bypass) has guidelines as to eligibility for receiving that type of procedure. If you fall within the guidelines you will receive the surgery. If, for example, the insurance company guidelines say that you are too old or that your chances for survival are limited or that you will end up dying anyway, even from something else, the surgery will be 'pended' and the doctor will be required to submit the patient to a trial of conservative measures first. The insurance company already knows that they will eventually deny the procedure, but they play a game with the doctor and the patient. Maybe the patient will die before the procedure has to be performed and paid for.
      
      The same process is used for every single procedure that requires surgery or a hospital stay. The process is also employed when it comes to certain medications. If a medication is deemed to be too expensive, it will be denied outright or the decision 'pended'. The insurance company will then tell the doctor what course of other meds must be tried first.
      
      I was an insider. I worked as a utilization review coordinator for a Senior Medicare Plan. Death panels exist and meet every day in the management offices of every insurance company.
      
      As far as digging up and using any dirt against critics, that practice is also widespread.

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   Mighty Momposted 14 years ago

   Any thought of the health insurance industry makes my blood pressure go up, so I try really hard not to think about those greedy, unethical and immoral people (you wanna talk "death panels" -- what do you think we've got right now???!)
   
   Cigna could save itself a lot of time and probably money. That dirt on Michael Moore has been collected 10x over. I can think of a few organizations (NRA, US Govt under Bush, various shamed corporations) who would be happy to share whatever they found out....
   So do you think we should wait around for Cigna's apology to Congress?
   
   BTW, interesting timing, Ralph, as GM comes roaring back, announcing one of the largest IPOs in history!!!

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3. 61

   Paul Wingertposted 14 years ago

   I think we should push the insurance industry, especially the health insurance companies off a cliff! Although I'm very disappointed that we still don't have universal health care.

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