Re: [UC] Blue cross changes to junk insurance
"I can't believe BC is discontinuing the Personal Choice for you! That's already, if not "cadillac", then pretty darn close and the premiums on that are really high."Wendy and Al, thanks for your suggestions and good wishes. The health insurance companies are exempt from anti-trust laws. All companies will be taking these same measures. Across the board, health insurance stocks have skyrocketed after their victory over the American people was announced(To the other Blue cross letter recipients- I have no idea what I will do. Please consider sharing your concerns/ fears on this public list! And please contact all congress people and Arlen Specter and demand a vote against the corporate insurance windfall, and support Bernie Sanders single payer debate! )Wendy, you are right on all points. I think we will all see an explosion of "choices" among the many versions of junk insurance! And yes, I've paid almost $50, to Blue Cross over the past 7 years.Clearly, the letter, several of us received, shows a few of the new strategies. Plans that keep people safe from bankruptcy (100% after deductible and copays) will skyrocket! Blue Cross does not even place those plans in the letter; seeming to only offer the junk insurance. Blue Cross people are supposed to call them, beg, and then pay anything! (Millions of additional middle class citizens will be forced to skip the very important preventive screenings, etc that medical science identifies as life saving.) Secondly, they are responding to the supposed "new reforms" which are ostensibly to keep people from being individually dropped. Clearly, insurance companies will be regularly ending entire plans to drop or bankrupt all of their sick insured! People have no real options when they investigate the myriad of junk plans, and many more citizens will be quickly transferred to the responsibility of the government as they go bankrupt. I'm healthy, but think of the Blue Cross customers who are in the middle of a course of treatment! After years of paying $7000 a year, they will face bankruptcy or cancel life saving procedures when they thought those years of paying the high levels would protect them! They are totally screwed!We are supposed to be angry at the 30 million people who currently can't afford any insurance. The government will fine them and then give them subsidies for what?? Clearly, the poor will only receive junk insurance and if they ever get sick they will be quickly cast to the governments responsibility. Providing poor people junk insurance will not stop the 45,000 annual deaths among their cohort! Taxpayers will be transferring billions for corporate profit that will not help these poor people at all.Blue Cross has piloted these maneuvers for years. This so called reform is supposed to force companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions. But I bet it doesn't stop "limited first year benefits." As these companies begin and end junk insurance plans with different names, they will force all people to be "new customers" every couple years. Each time they end an entire plan, anyone who became sick in the past year will be categorized as a new customer!It was uncovered some years ago, after the California wild fires, that insurance companies colluded to use the courts to destroy any customer who didn't accept their terrible offers. As a broad deterrent or punishment, internal memos confirmed that they would spend far more money on any individual case to destroy any effort by a victim to get a fair compensation for their burned houses. This letter foreshadows collective punishment against the American people for wanting health care reform! Because we were bad, the only plans that will protect Americans against bankruptcy, if one gets a serious illness, will skyrocket. And millions and millions of people who previously sacrificed to come up with the $7000 per year will be forced inbto junk insurance that will destroy them and their families if anyone gets sick. Untold thousands will die for skipping and delaying medical advice! As they die during bankruptcy, the taxpayers will get all the final bills anyway.THIS IS WHY HEALTH INSURANCE STOCKS HAVE SKYROCKETED AS UPPER CLASS INVESTORS SMELL THE BLOOD MONEY!Thanks again and pray for all of us,Glenn -Original Message- From: missthin <misst...@gmail.com> Sent: Dec 22, 2009 5:25 PM To: krf...@aol.com Cc: UnivCity@list.purple.com Subject: Re: [UC] Blue cross changes to junk insurance Hi allThis insurance mess just keeps getting worse and worse. Kind of like the bill passed to "help" consumers with credit cards and limitations that could be put on interest rates, etc. Well they gave the CC companies how long before it kicks in? and in the meantime most people with CC are getting letters announcing that their interest rates are jumping anywhere from 5% to 20% above what they were. Now the insurance companies a
[UC] Blue cross changes to junk insurance
I just got a letter from Blue Cross. They are ending their Personal Choice Plan and converting to junk insurance by the end of Feb. The death panels swing into action fast! Those of us who pay for our own insurance will be the first to be attacked. These organized crime companies all act together because they are shielded from anti-trust; your horrifying letters will be coming soon. Of course, this demolition of benefits does not have premium reductions. With a new mandatory $5000 deductible, this will eliminate all preventive screening and will translate into many new deaths among those insured previously. (They now list a separate company to handle medical savings accounts.) Because the data is hidden by insurance companies, we do not know the actual number of deaths among the under-insured like the 45,000 uninsured deaths per year. I believe the mortality rates of those with junk insurance exceeds the death rate of the uninsured. (I believe the working poor fail to get important screenings at higher rates than the uninsured.) I and many others will be put at new risk for medical bankruptcy with the reductions in percentages covered. I assume forcing people into a new wave of shopping for new insurance among the hyena companies will be part of a method to circumvent any new rules on pre-existing conditions. (These death panels also add a managed care model to deny coverage to out of network facilities. If something happens when you are away from home, they will only cover up to 50% after the fact). The betrayal by the corporate democrats and their grand charade has thrown a new cohort of Americans into risks for bankruptcy and death! The death companies rationing of care, in favor of profits, is the opposite to best medical practices. Those visits under $5000 are the very doctor visits that prevent serious and chronic disease! When once preventable illnesses of the bankrupted are dumped on the government the costs will be astronomical. All insurance companies are known to use punishment tactics. This will be blamed on the American peoples' desire for reform. But they have denied us reform and created a health insurance bailout. We are going to be told by cable news that we are being punished for the very desire for health care reform Totally fucked small business person, Glenn You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the list named UnivCity. To unsubscribe or for archive information, see http://www.purple.com/list.html.
Re: [UC] Blue cross changes to junk insurance
In a message dated 12/22/2009 9:14:46 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, glen...@earthlink.net writes: I just got a letter from Blue Cross. They are ending their Personal Choice Plan and converting to junk insurance by the end of Feb. Being an old coot, I'm on Medicare (which increased the amount they withhold from my social security payment, but not by too much). I was on Blue Cross' Keystone 65 -- a so-called Medicare Advantage Plan. Some years they charged me $30 per month for this, some it was $15 per month, some it was free ... go figure! Anyway, this year they discontinued it and instead offered something much more expensive (on top of what's already deducted from Social Security). I looked around and decided to switch to an Aetna Medicare Advantage. Also free as long as I was willing to fork over a little more in co-payments. Anyway, Aetna looked pretty good all around, so I'd suggest you look at their website and see if they have something that's reasonable for self-employed young whippersnappers, too. Alan Krigman KRF Management, ICON/Information Concepts Inc 211 S 45th St, Philadelphia PA 19104-2918 215-349-6500, fax 215-349-6502 krf...@aol.com or _al.krig...@krf.icodat.com_ (mailto:al.krig...@krf.icodat.com) PS: I am not employed by, nor receive any commissions from, Aetna. And I won't be starting with them until 1/1/10 so, for all I know, they may be very tight with their referrals when something come up that's beyond my primary care physician (who, incidentally, is the same person I had with Keystone 65).
Re: [UC] Blue cross changes to junk insurance
Hi all This insurance mess just keeps getting worse and worse. Kind of like the bill passed to help consumers with credit cards and limitations that could be put on interest rates, etc. Well they gave the CC companies how long before it kicks in? and in the meantime most people with CC are getting letters announcing that their interest rates are jumping anywhere from 5% to 20% above what they were. Now the insurance companies are doing the scramble to make sure they get every penny they can squeeze out of us. The healthcare reform as it stands right now I don't believe is going to help any of us, whether you're self-employed, a small (especially) business owner, employees (I know one person who's rate is going up about 25% in January), the disabled and retired. We are all going to lose under this reform, just like the last administration's medicare reform hurt so many. High beginning of the year deductibles, the lovely donut hole, doctors opting to not take on new medicare patients or even stop accepting medicare because of the already low reimbursement - which promises to become even lower under the new reform, same with hospitals. Not that insurance companies do a great job of reimbursement. I think that's why doctors and hospitals charge so much. They are kind of overcharging in hopes of getting something reasonable to allow them to continue to stay in practice. I can't believe BC is discontinuing the Personal Choice for you! That's already, if not cadillac, then pretty darn close and the premiums on that are really high. I have Keystone 65 HMO (and medicare, got to have to part B to get supplemental or advantage plans). My HMO is going up in January along with all co-pays and deductibles. I had Aetna (medicare HMO) and was not really happy with them. YMMV! Of course at this point I'm not sure many of us are happy with our insurance and having the insurance company, not you and your doctor, decide what's going to be covered or allowed. Went through fighting them over seeing a Cardiologist and having needed tests done. Glen, I hope you can find some sort of affordable, without deductibles through the roof insurance. Wendy On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 10:07 AM, krf...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 12/22/2009 9:14:46 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, glen...@earthlink.net writes: I just got a letter from Blue Cross. They are ending their Personal Choice Plan and converting to junk insurance by the end of Feb. Being an old coot, I'm on Medicare (which increased the amount they withhold from my social security payment, but not by too much). I was on Blue Cross' Keystone 65 -- a so-called Medicare Advantage Plan. Some years they charged me $30 per month for this, some it was $15 per month, some it was free ... go figure! Anyway, this year they discontinued it and instead offered something much more expensive (on top of what's already deducted from Social Security). I looked around and decided to switch to an Aetna Medicare Advantage. Also free as long as I was willing to fork over a little more in co-payments. Anyway, Aetna looked pretty good all around, so I'd suggest you look at their website and see if they have something that's reasonable for self-employed young whippersnappers, too. Alan Krigman KRF Management, ICON/Information Concepts Inc 211 S 45th St, Philadelphia PA 19104-2918 215-349-6500, fax 215-349-6502 krf...@aol.com or al.krig...@krf.icodat.com PS: I am not employed by, nor receive any commissions from, Aetna. And I won't be starting with them until 1/1/10 so, for all I know, they may be very tight with their referrals when something come up that's beyond my primary care physician (who, incidentally, is the same person I had with Keystone 65).
