Anthem decision - where is social responsibility?

It's impossible for me to believe that the Anthem health insurance company is too hard up for cash to continue providing coverage to beneficiaries, who are enrolled in the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
www.healthcarefinancenews.com/.../anthem-fourth-quarter-profits-jump-nearly-190-mil...

Anthem 4th quarter profits jump nearly $190 million over 2015

Medical enrollment increased by about 1.3 million members in 2016, or 3.4 percent, totaling about 39.9 million members.

Anthem mission statement: "dedicated to delivering better care to our members, providing greater value to our customers and helping improve the health of our communities."

It's a cruel statement about Anthem's social responsibility to pull out of the Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges. 

Frankly, it's not coincidental to recognize where the Anthem headquarter office is located, in Indianapolis, Indiana. It's the home state of Mike Pence, who was the state's previous governor and now the Vice President, serving under Donald Trump.  

Anthem's unethical decision to leave thousands of people uninsured without a viable reason for doing so, is likely rooted in political cronyism.  Mike Pence and his Koch Brothers libertarian colleagues likely had influence on this selfish Anthem decision.

Clearly, the Anthem decision isn't about money or bottom line financials. Although the Anthem "pull out" excuse is the anticipation of an unstable health insurance market, the unethical decision is not justified given the company's lucrative fiscal positioning. It is estimated that 26,000 Maine beneficiaries will lose coverage because of Anthem's selfish decision.

There must be a way for Congress to prevent Anthem's wrong minded decision.  Obviously, the Koch Brothers have the Republicans under their "oligarchy" thumbs. Their intention is to completely dismantle all social safety net programs, like health insurance subsidies and other humanitarian policies.

In other words, people who need health insurance just don't matter anymore. Even Anthem's lucrative financials and increasing enrollments have no impact on the company's social responsibility.

Shame on Anthem!

I'm calling on public policy experts and insurance regulators to stop Anthem's cruel and unnecessary decision. It's the company's social responsibility to support participation in the Affordable Care Act's health coverage. 

Unethical for Dr. Bill Cassidy to defend slash and burn of Medicaid

William Morgan Cassidy (born September 28, 1957) is an American physician and politician currently serving as the senior United States Senator from the state of Louisiana.

Physicians all over the world hear their patients cry for lack of ability to pay for curative treatments. 

Dr. Bill Cassidy, the physician turned politician and Louisiana Senator, knows what his patients have endured or given up in their struggles to afford health care.  Consequently, he should be defending Medicaid and the expansion of this benefit to more poor people, rather than forcing un-vetted legislation with Senator Lindsey Graham, for the purpose of capping the reimbursement in a "slash and burn" bill, to erode this important benefit.

Hippocratic Oath- "do no harm"

In my opinion, it's unethical for Dr. (Senator) Cassidy to support the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act.  In his profession of being a physician, he should seriously remember the Hippocratic Oath and protect his patients from avoidable harm.  

Instead, Dr. Cassidy is supporting the repeal of public policy, the ACA, that has helped to provide uninsured people with health coverage for the purpose of gutting Medicaid. I can't help but believe there are #KochBrothers incentives behind this unethical behavior. In other words, some back door deals. Maybe this unethical connection can't be proven, but Dr. Cassidy's behavior mystifies me because he is not exercising good or ethical judgement.

Nevertheless:

Cassidy defends his repeal bill as provider and insurer groups heighten criticisms~ by Virgil Dickson

One of the Republican co-authors of the new Senate bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act said at a hearing Monday that the biggest beneficiaries of his bill are the states that chose not to expand Medicaid.

"I think if you're in a state that did not expand Medicaid, you are pleased about this bill," Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said at the Senate Finance Committee hearing to consider the Graham-Cassidy bill.

The bill would convert the ACA's funding for premium and cost-sharing subsidies and Medicaid expansion into $1.2 trillion in state block grants through 2026 and let states design their own systems, with few limitations on how they could use the money.* There is no provision for funding the block grants after 2026.

States that expanded Medicaid and enrolled lots of people in ACA marketplace plans would suffer the biggest financial losses. Many of those states, such as Ohio and West Virginia, are represented by GOP senators whose votes are needed to pass the bill.

Over the weekend, Republicans added $14.5 billion to the measure including extra funds for states of wavering GOP senators. But hospital leaders in those states remained fearful that the bill would lead to a loss of coverage in their states and a rise in uncompensated-care costs.

A chart that Senate Republicans circulated said the bill's revised version, released Monday morning, would provide 14% more federal funding for Arizona than under current law, Kentucky would get a 4% increase, Texas 49%, Alaska 3% and Maine 43%.

Alaska and Maine are represented by Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, respectively, two Republicans who helped kill the previous Senate repeal bill and whose votes are pivotal to passing this one.

The amended bill adds hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for sparsely populated states such as Alaska.

"It is highly unlikely that they could make enough funding or policy changes to end our concern," said Shayna Diamond, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association.

Hospitals in Alaska also remained unmoved by the eleventh-hour changes to bill. Even with the additional money, on a net basis the state still would be a loser, said Becky Hultberg, CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association.

"It would still result in an increase in the uninsured population, and the bill's block grants would be technically challenging to implement," she said. "Both of those remain major concerns for the association."

Hospitals in Maine were concerned that there were still too few details about the bill to determine the impact, said Becky Schnur, a spokeswoman for the Maine Hospital Association.

Physicians, hospitals, insurers and patient groups also continued to slam the bill Monday.

The American Academy of Family Physicians said the revised version of the bill released over the weekend fails to ensure coverage for essential benefits. It issued a joint statement with America's Health Insurance Plans, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association opposing the bill.

The AAFP said the Graham-Cassidy bill allows insurers to charge older Americans premiums that are five times greater than those for younger people. The bill would destabilize the individual insurance market and end the Medicaid expansion for low-income adults, the AAFP said.

"The result will be millions of Americans who have no access to needed medical care because they cannot afford or are denied health insurance," AAFP President Dr. Michael Munger said in a written statement.

*"few limitations on how to use the money?"- Including skillful u$e to creatively balance state budgets!

New Majority Agenda Like a Long and Twisted Road

Blog readers keep asking one question about the New Majority Agenda. "Who are they?"

An unsophisticated website reveals nothing about the "who" in this negative campaign, conceptualized to create disdain about President Obama.  Rather, their website is a matrix where bold, unsubstantiated, untrue  long and twisted road of lies are printed in various fonts.

New Majority Agenda isn't required to reveal who are driving the ads.

Negative New Majority Agenda TV ads are psychologically driving average people into a state of voter cynicism.  Presumably, those who get on board with the ads become angry enough to vote with Republicans in the Presidential 2012 election.  Those who see the lies are turned off by the messaging.

But, where's the outrage about the lies?  It's like people are frozen in the headlights when New Majority Agenda lies are broadcast.  American could drag these ads off of television with enough outrage.

A media blitz by New Majority Agenda's millions in advertising dollars, paves a long and twisted road of lies toward the November election.  These ads don't educate voters. Instead, they're psychologically created to turn off enthusiasm for President Obama, dragging viewers through a funneled dust bowl of commercials, toward one densely negative wrong fork in the road, a conclusion that all economic woes in the US are President Obama's fault. Not true.

Cowards like the conservatively filthy rich Koch Brothers should come out from hiding behind their long and twisted road of lies, presuming they're the "who" behind the ads.  Who else can waste this kind of money?

Even egotist tax hawk Grover Norquist faces the public on interview shows to explain his extreme positions against taxation.  Will the filthy rich Koch Brothers face President  Obama with their lies?

People who lie for their living, like the Koch Brothers, won't state their opinions to President Obama's face.

Instead, they're throwing decadent sums of money into a blame campaign, telling the nation's TV viewers that the national debt is about President Obama.  Nothing is said about how deficit spending began with unfunded wars and a Medicare D "mandate" forced upon us by President Bush's administration.  These facts aren't stops along the long and twisted road of lies perpetrated by the New Majority Agenda.

It's discouraging for rational thinkers to realize how futile it's become to present facts to the average American voter when they are brainwashed by negativity.  Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost tax money - Medicare D might be a good benefit, but it's an unfunded drain on the program, plus, a cash cow for pharmaceutical companies.

New Majority Agenda negative messages will crash and burn in the face of truth, but the expensive ads will undoubtedly keep driving us all down a long and twisted road of extreme misinformation, toward November.

Money in Right Wing Politics- Like Geiger Counters in a Uranium Field

While Wisconsin voters were inundated with over $30 million to sustain the term of right wing governor Scott Walker, his colleague Governor Romney was raising even more money to win the White House by attending a fund raiser in Texas at the Belo Mansion, a home where paintings created by Adolf Hitler were among the owner's artifacts.
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2012/06/churchill-roosevelt-and-hitler-oh-my-welcome-to-texas-mitt-romney.html/

But wait, there's more, writes Dallas News Reporter Wayne Slate. 

"Outside, should Romney get an opportunity to wander the grounds, is a garden of tyrants. Crow has collected busts and statues of famous dictators of the past, which he displays with a certain elan on the lawn. There’s a head of Stalin, a rare statue of Fidel Castro, a towering Lenin and various other bad guys expropriated from their countries of origin."

President's Obama's effigy would be on the chopping block, put there by right wing political zealots, if he were the candidate entertained and funded at an event where Adolf Hitler's heinous legacy was portrayed in art.  Obviously, Republicans and many charmed by their right wing messaging, are enchanted by money and the candidates they bribe with their decadently legal campaign contributions.


Let's be honest, Governor Scott Walker didn't retain his seat because he's a strong or even a good politician.  He was propped up by huge amounts of money, out raising Democrats by $30 million reported, to only $3 million in chump change for the challenger Mayor of Milwaukee.  In the corporate world, Governor Walker would have been fired long ago for lack of leadership, destroying his state's morale and dividing his constituency. But right wing money keeps him his job. He was bought at a high end retail price.


So, where does all this money flow from?  Koch Brothers apparently have a cottage industry making funds available to their selected right wing darlings.  
http://www.followthemoney.org/?gclid=CJ6ilKyqubACFbEBQAod7nD46Q

American voters must understand that campaign finance laws are merely sink holes of opportunity for politicians to legally accept bribes.  Our 2012  fall election will be about who has enough money to win votes- it's worse than strong armed dictatorship at polling stations. There's no need to witness brutal beatings of innocent voting victims, because money talks louder and more seductively than any amount of violence to influence voters.


This fall's election for President and US House of Representatives will be more about the political influence of money in our Democracy than about how the economy impacts middle class voters.


On the hypocrisy meter, wealthy magnates who salivate at their political influence like spectators at a carnival peep show, would rather drown politicians in campaign contributions than share their wealth to improve the human condition.  Their hypocrisy meters are chaotic, like Geiger counters in a uranium field.


Like any natural resource, eventually there will be an end to the amount of money people of wealth can muster to pay for their powerful political whims.  All humans, even the Koch Brothers, are mortals who will eventually meet their retribution, regardless of how long it takes for justice to come around to judging them.  Meanwhile, they and their amazingly rich colleagues (and Hitler art collectors) must feel like the bride groom after ingesting an aphrodisiac as a result of the outcome of the Wisconsin recall election - their influence is now the political equivalent of right wing politics on steroids.