Sunday, July 26, 2009

A real life story compliments of Great West Healthcare, a subsidiary of Aetna.


A monthly C.O.B.R.A. cost of medical insurance is $334.00 for single person coverage. The insured suffered a torn cartilage in the left knee.

The insured goes to a sports orthopedic surgeon that has performing successful surgery on other members of the family for over a decade. He is trusted by the insured The surgeon is local where the insured can receive support from family and friends post procedure. An MRI is required and the surgeon wants to do it in his office.

The insurance company is called by the surgeon's 'insurance assistant' that now has an office to herself as the demands for handling health care claims is so ridiculously time consuming that it requires dedicated staff members.

The MRI is not approved because it is not 'within' the 'network' and neither is the surgeon. The MRI can be performed at the local hospital and those arrangements are made and the cost will be shared by the insurer and the insured by a 70/30 insurance program.

The MRI is completed a week later as that was the soonest the hospital could accommodate the procedure, while the surgeon's office could have conducted it the next day. During that week the insured received Percocets to treat the pain while waiting.

The insured returned to the surgeon's office the day after the MRI was completed to learn there was indeed a torn cartilage of the left knee. Arthroscopic surgery is required to deal with the tear and the surgeon also wants to perform a lateral release to insure it doesn't happen again.

The insurance company is called. Since the surgeon is not in 'network' the deductible will increse to 40%. If the insured wants a lower 30% deductible the insured will be required to go to another medical facility about 35 miles away where there will be no immediate family and friends so that is declined as an option.

The deductible for the procedure for the surgeon alone is $4500.00. That is IF the surgeon only performs the arthroscopic surgery without the lateral release. The entire procedure will cost over $10,000 'OUT OF POCKET' between the hospital, anesthesia and physician.

That was $10,000.00 'Out-of-Pocket' for a procedure to a left knee. $10,000 out of pocket. And that is just for one aspect of the 'cure' to the injury. That doesn't even include the physical therapy that will be ordered after recovery from the procedure.

It is unrealistic to believe the cost of health care should cost anyone in the USA that much money. Something has to be done and soon regarding the RUNAWAY health care industry. This isn't even sane anymore !!!!!

The Rhetorical Jim Demint has no clue what is going on in government.


Jim DeMint with Dick Cheney at CPAP

Sanford Refuses Stimulus Cash (click here)
By Rob Jordan on Mar 20, 2009
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford today announced he would refuse federal stimulus cash since his request to use some of the money to pay down state debt was rejected by the White House. This is worth noting, not only from the standpoint of the Obama Administration ramming policy down the throat of a state, but also because many in the media have been unfairly jumping on Gov. Sanford of late and calling him a hippocrite for saying he wouldn’t take stimulus money and then flipping. Needless to say, this is simply untrue.
A press release issued from the Governor’s office read in part:...



He appeared in March at a conference called "Club for Growth Winter Conference (Sanford, DeMint, Romney)." (click title to entry - thank you) He appeared with Sanford as speakers at the conference, so he does know who the Governor of South Carolina is. I suppose the South Carolina Republicans are elated when their elected officials actually appear some place. At least they know they aren't hiking to Argentina and abandoning their responsibilities.


DeMint is one of the demented Republicans. He states that the National Health Reform Bill is still again a huge failure of the Obama Administration. He states that the Stimulus Bill is a failure and never prevented the South Carolina unemployment increase to 11.

Transcript. Evidently ABC News feels the transcript is necessary to clarify all remarks by those on the show:

...DEMINT: (click here) Well, they gave a similar numbers with the stimulus and promised our unemployment wouldn't go above 8 percent. And now in South Carolina, it's over 12. (click here for actual unemployment numbers in South Carolina) So the numbers are hard to trust, George.
This is not personal against the president. I like the president, but he is out of control and he has been leading a stampede of more spending and debt and taxes and government takeovers....


I see.

Does Representative DeMint actually know what is going on in South Carolina?

No.

Because if he did, he would know that Governor Sanford has refused the Obama Stimulus until the states legislature forced him to take it in the first week of June. I doubt seriously 6 to 7 weeks of accepting stimulus dollars allows for it to show an effect. Heck, it hasn't made it out of the State Treasury yet.

What is astounding to me is that this 'Mind Speak' actually is allowed in major media. Representative DeMint literally stated his disdain for the National Health Care Reform Bill by stating the Stimulus did nothing to reduce 11% unemployment in South Carolina, so therefore any Obama Plan doesn't work. George Stephanopoulos let him get away with it. That was amazing.



Stephanopoulos stated this after the commentary by Demint. Demint isn't supposed to be making commentary. He is supposed to be stating facts and why a proposed National Health Care Reform Bill is out of the question. But, this is what George thought more important.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Slow it down and get it right. Is there any meeting of the minds here?

GET IT RIGHT was what Stephanopoulos thought more important. He specifically let any criticism of Demint pass by because he wanted to 'anchor' any further 'commentary' in criticism of the National Health Care Reform Bill.

Stephopoulos want to give the Republicans a leg up on the commentary that was suppose to follow. He didn't care about the highly competent Bill proposed by an intelligent President of the USA. That didn't matter. What mattered was that Demint was supposed to come across as an expert in dire straights of protecting his expertise. He was supposed to be viewed as embattled from a 'righteous' standpoint that carried more validity than a freely elected President with an ambitious agenda for change in the USA.

Stephanopoulos let the highly INCOMPETENT statement of a South Carolina Representative pass so they could make the point that it was Obama that was not ambitious, but, extreme in demanding legislation to benefit the American people by the end of the year. To say President Obama has the support of the media of the USA is a gross error. Make no doubt about it. The press isn't used to intelligence in the Oval Office so much as incompetence and manipulation to deceive the American people.

The statement above by Representative Jim Demint is a DELIBERATE deception. He is DELIBERATELY manipulating the facts in order to derive a faux reality that will provide a wedge issue to delay the vote by confusing the electorate. WE CAN KEEP THIS UP FOREVER. Or. We can trust our President to bring legislation that will benefit the people of the USA. Demint is manipulating the truth to benefit his cronies. He should be impeached at the very least. When will the people of the USA stop 'tolerating' such hogwash? Never?

Jim Demint needs to be replaced with a competent individual that actually cares about the people of South Carolina. His current website (click here) tells the people of South Carolina what to think. It literally insults the intelligence of his own constituency and is nothing more than a political advertisement for the arrogant.

These are the people that are STILL in office in the federal government. People need to wake up and expect to be treated as thinking individuals with their own opinions reflected by their needs and priorities. The people of South Carolina need this Health Care Reform Bill as much, if not more, than the rest of the nation and they get dictated to by their own Representatives. This is the year 2009. Like, what the heck?

I was of the understanding that the government is supposed to be 'of, by and for the people.' It sure AIN'T in South Carolina.

James Demint has absolutely NO BASIS in fact for his analogies. None. Yet we have to put up with this mess. To what end? And we have to put up with media services that cannot 'handle' these idiots? It was blantant politicking that Demint engaged in and he should have been called on it and then some. Trying to defame a President by speaking out of both sides of his mouth while manipulating facts to 'fit' his point of view is totally reprehensible and the media allows it. We don't need it. We really don't need it. Demint was lying. Taking facts and spinning them without facing 'the truth' is a blantant disregard of 'The Public Trust' but yet he persists. Enough already!