A Republican Irony
By Louise
In a republican irony of all ironies...If history had been different, Doug Holtz-Eakin would be in the White House pushing the republican domestic agenda and blocking health-care reform, at McCain's side. He was McCain's top health-care guru. He's now unemployed -- and his COBRA health coverage is running out. But...it gets worse. He has one of those pesky "preexisting conditions" that insurance companies often cite in denying coverage. He says, "If you look at my file, any insurance company would go, 'Hmm . . .' " Hmmmm, indeed.
A new Senate analysis suggests that for-profit insurance companies spend as little as 66 cents of each dollar on health care, “while the rest covers administrative expenses, marketing and company profits, according to the analysis.” And, of course, they have to pay that $100 million a year plus in compensation to Stephen Hemsley, the CEO of United Healthcare.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
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United Healthcare has gobbled up a whole lot of the competition and put in some really stupid rules to govern its employees. To give you an example of what they consider important. When United Healthcare purchased Americhoice(a then black minority owned insurance company), they moved people around from cubicles and floors to correspond to their salary. So if you were a low paid worker and you had a fair sized cubicle, you were moved to a smaller one that befit your low salary. Stephen Hemsley''s salary is obscene.
I find their rules for healthcare reimbursement to be hard to follow. I never seem to use up my deductible. Another example, they purchased LabCorp and immediately proceeded to mandate that LabCorp be used exclusively. A routine bloodworkup would be billed at $1,000.00, adjusted to $200 which would be fully billed to the patient while not even applied to the deductible at all.