This is going to be a fun couple of years: “Blue Shield of California [is] seeking cumulative hikes of as much as 59% for tens of thousands of customers March 1,” the Los Angeles Times reports tonight. And the emotionally unstable alcoholic chain-smoker now running the House of Representatives wants to make sure this is the future for all Americans unlucky enough to need health insurance (because they’re not covered by the free congressional coverage that Boehner gets, along with the other GOP members of Congress). Haha, and Democrats in the House are demanding that the GOP members all opt out of the federal plan. God, what a stupid country.
The California rate hikes don’t really have much to do with orange-nut John Boehner, other than the company claiming (among other things) that the “costs of health care reform” are one of the reasons for the three or four separate rate hikes individually insured policy holders have faced in the past year.
What’s “fun” about this is self-employed people are mostly not exactly rolling in money, in this third year of the recession and second year of the recovery. For many of those seeing their insurance rates doubling, the only option is to drop the insurance. And that means when they get ill — and everyone gets ill, and most everyone will be treated for expensive illnesses before they die — they’ll be 100% covered by whatever program gets stuck with the bill. It’s like double-super-secret Obamacare + HillaryCare x the USSR. Thanks, Republicans! (Or should we say comrades?) [LAT/Reuters]
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Just don't let a Boehner get anywhere near my colon, and we're ok.
And yeah, fuck Blue Shield.
Another rate increase from Big Blue, huh? Uh oh, I'd better get back to my chicken farm…
Conservatives will only be up in arms if the coverage includes abortion &/or advanced directives.
The former should be for obvious reasons, & the latter — well, with adv. directives, the likelihood of being able to make political hay from another Schiavo situation will be drastically reduced.
at this point, i'd take shiavo's feeding tube over marco rubio.
Those death panels are expensive.
"live free….
and die"
Ah, the invisible hand of Big Health is doing what it does best, fisting the sick.
as long as we let american jesus capitalism work, everything will be ok. poor people will work shit jobs(productivity!), die slowly from fatness and heart disease and hypertension and general misery, but they'll reproduce(defund planned parenthood!), thereby keeping the oligarchs with their supply of wage slaves.
= profit!!
Wait, don't you know Blue Cross is a not for profit??
hahahahahahahaha
Pretty sure I know who the execs at Blue Shield listen to in their cars during "drive time."
"war and peace"? "the reagan diaries"? "how to win friends in congress and destroy people"?
i really hate to use gender-specific slurs, but i really feel the urge to use the term "cunt rag" right now.
I was all about "Jesus Fuck" for most of the day.
OH. MY. CHRIST. is also a nice fall back.
The Mamas and the Papas?
Death Metal?
"Kill, kill, kill, the Poor!"
convince the liberals its ok
So the “costs of health care reform” is one of the reasons for the hockey-stick graph line for the price of individual policies issued by Blue Shield of California…
They don't mention that the other reasons are that the health insurers are run by sleazy money worshiping assholes who would rather watch a child writhe in pain from a treatable condition than pay a cent for his treatment and who will withhold payment for covered procedures/regimens/drugs for as long as possible hoping their customers will die before the insurers have to pay.
don't forget the middle aged woman with breast cancer who gets dropped by her insurance company because she was treated for a skin condition(PRE EXISTING CONDITION) when she was 18. that's the insurance company version of due diligence.
The insurance cartels also don't mention the substantial addition to health care costs of forcing health care providers to battle with the insurers for every nickel.
Major health insurers use committees to accomplish this sort of minimizing of expenses. They are called "Dearth Panels."
All snark aside, having had coverage where the funds are drying up is not pretty – you nominally have health insurance but are afraid to use it since your claims may or may not get paid.
Private health insurance just doesn't work – it's not like homeowners insurance or auto insurance where most people can reasonably hope not to use it. Single payer is the way to go; oh, sure – there are places which have private coverage which works (Switzerland maybe?) but they don't have a proud tradition of providing lap dances and hand jobs to corporations.
Ah America at it's finest! No ObamarSocializumCare for us!
All those against sane, humane and equitable universal health care can go fuck themselves. How fucking stupid can they be? Fuck them all. Just fuck them all. No snark here either.
Oh no, no no. You make them sound horrible. See, they never watch the child writhing in pain. They only see the nice clean sanitized bottom-line reports, in which said child, now unidentifialby faceless, is just another contributing variable working toward, or against the bottom line!
It's not a child anymore, it's just an encumbrance on profitability! Nobody cares about those. The sleazy money worshipping assholes love children, of course!
wouldn't it be more efficient to just give the insurance companies money with the understanding that we will get nothing for it in return?
"if you experience more than four hours of boehnercare, make sure your passport is up to date and consult your travel agent."
Last time I used a passport for boner-care I went to Sweden and met this really cute…what's that?…Boehner?…oh…never mind
It really does need to be pointed out that for every other modern developed nation on the planet, and quite a few of the developing nations, also, universal healthcare was pretty much a political no-brainer that was the first thing they did once they had the funds, because it shuts up the liberals, and nobody else raises shit over it, because come on, universal health care.
In America, supposedly one of the wealthiest and "greatest" (insofar as such a thing can be quantified, which is to say, it can't) countries on the planet, we see "populist" outrage at this, again, easy political win for every other country that had the economic base for it (as exemplified by that sign above), because we "can't afford it" because that same "populist" political force wanted to make sure we handed more of the treasury over to billionaires, before anything else.
Truly, we are a nation of morons.
every time i hear anyone refer to america as "the greatest country in the world", i automatically deduct 35 i.q. points from that person and my mental filter says "don't waste time listening to this fucking imbecile".
You lib-dem-commies make me sick. Sick I tell you.
We have the "greatest health care system" in the world too. That's why we have double to triple the life-expenctency of those Socialist states. That's why there are MILLIONS coming from other countries to get their overprescribed antibiotics, useless x-rays, and futile chemotherapy (not to mention radiotherapy.). Why do you think they are willing to come in droves?? Just to pay the "not for profit" middlemen/executives??
related: it's why the social security reformers want to raise the retirement age BECAUSE OLD RICH WHITE PEOPLE ARE LIVING LONGER NOW while old white/black/brown/yellow people who are poor should keep working their entire lives and can go get fucked and die while working the midnight shift at the super walmart.
Working that midnight shift after being told to punch out by their manager and therefore officially dying on their own personal time. Ta da! No on-the-job death benefit necessary.
Life expentancy in China is around 65; US life expectancy is 3 times that? 195? I don't believe it.
China used to have universal care. It was pretty basic but kept a lot of people alive, explaining the growth in population. Recently, the post-commies in charge decided to quit funding the village clinics (schools, too) and make it all pay-as-you-go, because "that's what they do in America!" (The excuse for half the bad ideas in post-commie China.)
This is similar to a famous auto-biz case-study from the 70s. A US car maker had (probably accidentally) engineered a very simple, elegant, and cheap method for their door handle/latch assembly. A Japanese company had a clunky, inefficient system in place. The Japanese company, recognizing the superior design, reverse-engineered the US model, saving millions and implementing a better solution. The US company, assuming that those slanty-eyed devils MUST have the best solution, reverse-engineered the terrible design, costing millions and resulting (one can only assume) in the 1978 Pinto.
ZINGO! The way to defeat the Chinese is have them emulate the Greatest Country in the World!
Pure Genius. That's why I go here before the Washington Posting.
Greatest health care system in the world! As long as you stop including "access" as one of your metrics of quality, and only look at the care available to millionaires and billionaires, who can get their out-of-pocket PET scan for tomorrow if they wanted, even though there's no medical reason it couldn't wait a week or two actually! (And if you're not a billionaire, but have one of the better insurance plans, will probably spend that much time trying to get approval anyway, I mean, what rationing!)
I do have to give the teabaggers credit for one one thing, though: between this crap, and the aging war criminals covertly sheltered by the current government, this country is starting to look a bit like a banana republic; it's just that when the teabaggers first said it, it was for no reason more artful than there's a brown guy in the presidency, and End the Fed, also.
…automatically deduct 35 i.q. points from that person and my mental filter says "don't waste time listening to this fucking imbecile"
I'm gonna roll like that too!
fuckin srsly
fuckin srsly, man.
Healthcare is only a no-brainer for Terry Schiavo.
Too soon! Oh, no – I guess too late.
I normally abhor math, but I really liked that.
its like solving for X
Fuck, I hate math
Of course the debate over health care reform cost Blue Shield an arm and a leg. You think bussing fat slobs in to town halls and printing out their questions was cheap?
hiring a communications major(drop out) from arizona state to give a busload of angry old bitters a bunch of 5 syllable talking points costs money and stimulates the economy. COME ON.
Hey, it's not cheap to pay off those republican congressmen. The lobbyists have to wrangle hookers and launder cash. These things cost money, guys!
PLUS male hookers are way more expensive than the female version, since there are less of them.
Deny Blue Shield the rate hike (these things are regulated, surely?), let them reach the verge of bankrupcy, have the government buy them out GM-style, but never sell back the shares… voila! Public option.
Regulated? Sure they are.
Health insurance provider: Can we raise our rates?
Regulator: Sure
Voila! Regulated
Ha, ha! I'm unemployed and have a gall bladder that needs taking out. Under the new as-yet-unrepealed health care law I can buy into a pool here in Texas for people with existing conditions–for $557 a month! With a $3,000 deductible: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/preexist...
If my gall bladder really goes south–I've had 2 very painful attacks–the emergency room surgery would probably run $25,000 or so. When I was employed and had group insurance my share would have been $3,000, which I didn't have then.
I'd be happy for Barney Frank or anyone who knows how to do a colonoscopy do my next one, as I'm overdue. And I can't afford Crestor, which my doctor wants me to take over a generic statin because a month's worth is $125 at Costco.
Actually, my main fear is losing my teeth. I need about 7 crowns and 2 teeth have already broken into smaller chunks. Even if I had dental insurance I'd still be out $400-$500 for my portion of one crown.
So I'm hoping for a quick and painless death by heart attack. And I think this new Congress may spur that to happen.
And the upside, chuckle chuckle, is that you're not alone. Your situation is shared by millions in This Great Land of Ours. (Of whom an apparently substantial portion consistently vote against their own best interests!) My own dream at this point is just to make it to Medicare age in an approximately salvageable condition.
Good luck to you. Good luck to us all.
Hahaha, "make it to Medicare age", as though it won't be repealed and replaced with "private health accounts", which will then be securitized and chopped up and help cause the next financial collapse. Which coincidentally will also mean you don't have a private health account any more, also.
i'd let barney frank finger my ass before i let john boehner preside over my house of representatives.
Have you thought about finding a dental school for your teeth? They often provide reduced or free work as long you don't mind a student hacking away at you. Especially if you have dire need for it. I know the school by me had a contest recently for a full dental makeover for the most deserving person.
I entered myself on account of being mugged a couple years back and breaking a few teeth. I lucked out then in that while I had a small amount of coverage, my dentist took pity on me and did a few hundred dollars of work for free. Of course since then I've lost my job and insurance and need to have the teeth permanently fixed (as well as have 4 wisdom teeth removed) and can't even afford to go in for a consultation.
Mugged? In Philly (just judging by where the pic was taken)? NEVER!
(Note: I live in a terrible area of Philly, so this is entirely facetious.)
Worse. Bethlehem.
Boehner and the religiousrightniks, et al., would say you deserve to suffer. The good are rich and healthy; the poor and sick are wicked, somehow or other.
Exactly. If G*d considered us human beings he would have made us rich.
I feel your pain. Recently I needed a root canal, without insurance it was $900, so it had to go on the credit card because BAM! no job. Additionally, my lady cycles have become increasingly painful and erratic, 28 days and 7 days? NO THANKS SAYS MY UTERUS, make that 23 days and 9 days. I'm thinking I'll get to see a doctor by the time I need a hysterectomy.
Oh and the 6 student loan companies hounding me for my $148/week unemployment check doesn't help either.
God, this may be the most depressing Wonkette thread ever.
You know, I'm sure an unemployment check would cover that $557 a month health care bill if you just employ Fox News-style math: Say what you want enough times that people start to believe it. (I'm SURE it'll work on your doctor and landlord and various utility providers!)
I'm employed, and thankfully somewhat healthy, as my insurance, at $822/month, has a $6000 deductible. And according to my employer, this is actually an improvement over the Anthem/Blue Cross coverage we just dropped. I'm about ready to start handing (well, footing) out crotch-kicks any time I hear someone claim we need to repeal health care reform. Even with insurance, getting sick isn't an option.
Surely when the Repubs repeal the healthcare law then Blue Cross will lower their rates back down to pre-2009 levels, yes?
Hahahahaha! Good one!
Thanks, I kill me! No wait, not being able to afford an individual Blue Cross plan on the open market here in the People's Republic of California and thus being up shit's creek if I ever get really sick is what's going to kill me.
It's clear that they're pursuing a negotiating tactic that has worked brilliantly in this country for the last few years. The rubes, and that most definitely includes the elected, is asked to approve an astronomically outrageous proposal, balk at it, and then settle for a lesser, but still outrageous deal:
* Paulson wanted control of $700 bn, without a modicum of congressional oversight or questioning of what he does with it. He gets control of $700 bn, but with congressional interference (which basically amounts to what he asked for, but not in the public eye)
* Consumers are asked to pay nearly $5/gallon of gas because of financial manipulation in the commodity markets, NOT supply/demand issues, but instead settle for $3/gallon because that's less than $5 (but double $1.50, dumbasses!)
* Bluecross wants a 59% rate hike but will settle for, what 30%? Really? But inflation has dropped to less than 2%, why the fuck do you need to raise rates that much, especially if you're holding yourself out as a not-for-profit?
Why? Damn nation of morons, that's why.
Affordable health care for everyone in the U.S. = terrible idea, socialism, fascism, what-the-fuckism, something dreamed up by the colored in the "White" House.
Slaughtering carload lots of Afghans and Iraqis, leaving tons of unexploded but still deadly ordinance all over the place = wonderful idea, Americanism, what Jesus wants.
Fuck yeah.
Every soldier in Afpak costs a 1 million bucks a year.
And leave pallets of our money out for everyone, we don't need it for anything. Fucking retards.
America sucks balls – have you looked lately at what a decent villa costs in Spain or Portugal? Or Belize or Ecuador or France or Italy or any number of places?
You need to look farther north. Not that Canada is so great right now, but the weather up there is bound to improve over the next decade.
do tell. I can learn a fucking language.
Yes, we are hooked on House Hunters International. And Ms. Kincaid actually lived, worked and got bennies in Europe in the '80s, so you can't bullshit us!
I am really wondering what is the point of sticking around for this shit.
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Hey Boehner!
Blue Cross of Michigan is one of the highest cost insurance companies in the nation. Until the state cracks down an outright refuses requested rate increases, they have no incentive to make their company a leaner, cost effective company. There are things I don't like about health reform, but, I think the so called "public option" is needed if for nothing more than to force big blue to compete.
Funny, I always thought that BC/BS of Michigan was one of the better ones, or at least one of the least of the blood-suckers. It's one of the more heavily regulated nonprofits, and by that I mean it's the insurer of last-resort of Michigan who are required to pick up whomever the for-profit, corporate insurers leave behind, so they are essentially handcapped from the get-go. They also claim to spend 92 centers of every dollar of premiums on actual health care, which I think makes their overhead far lower than your average for-profit insurer.
In a way, it'd be easier to implement a state single-payer system here in Michigan since BC/BS is basically already a quasi-state agency and covers over 50% of the population, anyway, and it's why they get away with a lot of their rate raises.
"Emotionally unstable alcoholic chain-smoker" Ken, you left out tanning bed addict.
Sarah Palin will say "See? Obamacare Death panels! You betcha."
Sarah P., Pentecostal, probably believes in faith-healing. Anyone have a quote?
She did ask everyone to pray for that gas pipeline. Does that count?
Oh! I thought she was praying for The Todd to lay some pipe! At the time, I thought, "Gawd, Surah! TMI!"
Why are we stll playing ball with corporations? How many more times do we give them everything they want, and then they turn around and double-cross us? Obama delivered to them tens-of-millions of new victims…errr…paitents — yeah, patients — and then they turn around and do this shit.
The financial industry is allowed to indiscriminately raid our treasury, and then Obama turns around and tries to place minimal reforms on them — you know, fair play — and they turn around and horde the money they were given and bitch and moan about how the administration "just doesn't understand them" and hold the nation's economy hostage until they can destroy him (and us).
This ain't our first rodeo, but we keep sure as hell acting like it is.
Wow, that's the most pee-ness I've gotten for a post, ever, I think.
To make your own BoehnerCare:
mix a good few cups of artificial orange (flavouring & colouring),
half a bag of self-raising flour,
Stir in 1 large jar of marshmallow fluff,
and sprinkle in some mixed nuts and dried fruits to taste.
Leave in an oven full of hot air until it looks about done, or until your kitchen catches light (whichever comes first). Bon Appetit!
Needs moar weeping, and booze.
Onions soaked in gin?
So, let me get this straight. If I lived in Califiornia, it would cost me 59 percent more to care for my boehner? Talk about hitting below the belt!
Of course if you just skipped over the border to Vegas you could get your boehner cared for by a professional and it would cost a lot less.
just remember that these blood-sucking insurance firms have laid out mucho pengar for bribes, sorry, i mean campaign contributions to the GOP (god's own party), so they need to get it back over the backs of the american fools who voted for cryin' boehner and his team of idiots.
BonerCare is sure the best care for the bone
For your Blue Cross premiums and deductible you could go to France or Italy for a few weeks and get a pretty damn good check up and probably some dental work too.
My friend's mother broke her leg in Italy, and not only did they fix that up, they did all sorts of other helpful things, all without asking for a penny. Maybe just move to France or Italy period.
We should go back to our 19th century form of healthcare–when you're really ill, the doctor has no idea what it is and simply advises you to stay in bed until you die. Worked then.
Better yet. let them bleed you to death with leeches.
Or else the doctor says, "Take two laudanum and call me in the morning. Better yet, don't call–the phone hasn't been invented yet."
And don't forget that new wonder drug — arsenic!
Arsenic's looking awfully appealing right about now. Or hemlock, I'm not that picky.
You want some arsenic? Turn on your water tap.
True story: My Grandfather was a doctor in the 20's. His phone number had 4 digits. His treatment regimens consisted almost entirely of telling the patient to soak the offending body part in warm water 3 times a day, and prescribing a potent mixture of ethyl alcohol and opium. Everybody felt better.
And I'll bet his patients paid him in chickens!
They had no yard for chickens. He sometimes (gasp!) did things for free-because he was a good man who took his hippocratic oath seriously. Made house calls, also too. Some of these little fuckers who call themselves doctors these days are a disgrace. He would be appalled.
Imagine the money saved if we just go back to treatment at 1860s field hospitals. Bonus! You can build really cool structures with amputated legs and arms.
This is what they threatened to do during the health care debate and by god they're following through, just like they do in their claims dept. Nyuk nyuk..
To the teabagger with the sign:
Opinions are like assholes: Barney Frank isn't interested in yours.
Dear Jesus,
Have you wept yet today? (Boehner has.)
Love, the few remaining sane people in America
Sounds like it's bonus time at Blue Shield.
So instead of Jerry Brown coming to take my un-cool niece it's going to be Blue Shield coming to pull the plug on my un-cool granny?
Lets lynch the speaker man.
California Uber Alles
Gotta get Layne to go to bed earlier. When we on the east coast wake up and read some of his posts we want to crawl back into bed. Such posts are keep saner in the dead of the night.
Nonetheless Ken, truer than funny and funny as hell.
Thanks to Blue Shield, it'll now be cheaper for me to fly to France to get an opinion chez le medicin about this persistent cough.
Man, I wish the Democrats could grab a couple of news cycles SOMEHOW to continually demand that the GOP opt out of the federal plan. It should be SUPER EXTRA IMPORTANT NEWS. even more important than Lindsey Lohan and her lesbian ex. (i know that's hard to comprehend) I desperately want those morons to be hoisted on their own petard.
I'd like to see them hoisted on a bunch of meat hooks, personally.
SCREW IT. Let 'em raise the rates. I'm opening up a freelance surgery clinic. No insurance needed. Cheap as hell — just bring a few beers for each of us (brown ales & stouts preferred) and we'll call it even. Single-malt scotch for the really nasty procedures (Islay varieties, please). We'll all be heroes! This business model is too big to fail!
I'm sure you could get the good doctors Paul to support your libertarian medical practice – just make sure to only accept payment in Ameros. Gold Ameros. "Paper money!?! Paper!?! Aqua-Buddha-damn you! Get out!"
I have done ghastly things as part of my professional responsibilities. I have done some horrific crimes over my lifetime, period; including Capital Offenses. Nearing 70 I can take solace in the fact that I will go to my grave knowing I have never purposely profited financially from the illness or injury of another human being. Now that is just sad.
I have a friend whose company is threatening to reduce their employee healthcare benefits, ostensibly because of some nebulous and unspecified cost issue associated with healthcare reform. And instead of being angry with her employer for being a deceitful, self-serving, opportunistic asshole, she's pissed off at the President.
Go figure.
God, I'm so glad the House is busy reading the Constitution instead of concentrating on the real world we deal with
Thank goodness the teabaggers stopped the mean ol' government from picking on the poor insurance companies that never screw the public over.
My point remains, I have never and will never sink that low. Why this Country accepts for-profit healthcare is a puzzle to me.
They accepted Meet the Spartans. It's like, oops, wrong fucking planet.
Oooookay.
that was WAY funnier than BonerCare
Freedom of choice is a fundamental cornerstone of Christian belief, and American Jesus wants each of us, even the poor and the sick, to be able to choose whether to buy insurance. A true Christian can be healed of all medical maladies simply by praying fervently. Or maybe go to a pastor who can cure illness instead of going to a doctor. Also, a Christian government would not pay a single penny to any program that allows death to come earlier than God’s natural law intends. Except for capital punishment — that's okay.
The GI guy who did my colonoscopy was completely gay. I gave some small thought to the implications of this but he was one of the best docs I have ever had in terms of information, tact and skill. Also, his bedside manner was fabulous.
I was making a joke at the expense of Sue Lowden, but upon re-reading it I realize it sounded like it was at the expense of you and/or your grandpa. No disrespect intended.
no worries, not offended at all, just didn't get joke
Yay! Now, hook me up with some of that tincture of opium and I won't give a shit about health insurance.
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