Oh wait, I forgot. They take bribes from BIG Insurance !

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I have been waiting to hear ever since this tragic story broke, where is the outrage from the Right to Life folks who were front and center when Terry Schiavo was front page news?

That this country has allowed the insurance industry and its pharmaceutical partners to become the "deciders" in life and death matters is beyond the pale. Health care is a major issue in this country and we are arguing on sites such as Alternet about Ron Paul "not accepting evolution". Give me a break.

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that any insurance company would consider a procedure that has been done for about 25 years AND has a survival rate of 85% to be experimental.

Having had a liver and kidney transplant over a year and a half ago, I find this particular part of their decision to be particularly frightening. I'd be dead right now if CIGNA had been my insurance company.

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While CIGNA's actions were murderously despicable, UCLA Medical Center, who refused to provide treatment without a guarantee of payment, deserves a great deal of the blame, too.

Even private hospitals often provide care for the indigent and then settle for partial payment from charities and the state later on.

But particularly highly prestigious money-flush large PUBLIC Hospitals (The UC in UCLA medical center is University of California -- talk to The Terminator about who's in charge there, eh?) will provide treatment, and use their clout to duke it out with the insurance companies after the fact.

Or has UCLA Medical Center lost so much of its prestige, so much of its power, that it will let itself be pushed around by a pissant little insurance company -- to the point that PEOPLE DIE.

There's some weasely little administrator covering his or her butt up there in Westwood right now, happy that all the heat is coming down on CIGNA -- and not on UCLA Medical Center.

Who deserves at least half -- if not more than half-- of the blame.


Iuro per Apollinem medicum et Sanitiam et Remediatiam et deos universos et universas, scitores faciens, perficiam secundem possibilitatem et actionem et iudicium meum iuramentum hoc et conscriptionem istam. eum qui docuit me artem hanc introducere inter meos, et communicare in vita, et in quo indiget dationem facere, et genus quod ab ipso fratribus aequale iudicare eligam. et docebo artem hanc eos qui indigent discere absque pretio et conscriptione, et delusione et intemperantia et de reliqua universa disciplina traditionem facer filiis meis et eius qui me docuit et edoctis et temperatis et iuratis legi medicinali, alii autem nulli. dietationibusque utar omnibus iuvamento laborantium secundum possibilitatem et iudicum meum, et de incusatione et iniustitia prohibebor. neque dabo ulli farmacum rogatus mortale, neque narrabo consilium tale. similiter autem neque mulieri pessarium corruptivum dabo. pure vero et sancte servabo vitam meam et artem meam. non incidam autem neque lapidatatem patientes, sed dimattam hoc opus hominibus huius operationis. ad domos autem ad quotcumque ivero, ibo ad utilitatem eorum qui laborant, absque omni iniustitia spontanea et corruptive alia, et venereorum operum in mulieribus corporibus liberorum et servorum. ea vero quae in cura videro aut audivero, vel etiam absqua cura de vitis hominum, quae non sit conveniens loqui extra, tacebo, ceu neque videre ea putans. iuramentum itaque meum et conscriptionem hanc qui perfectum facit et non confringit erit diligibilis ut augeatur et in vita et arte honorandus ab omnibus hominibus insempiterno tempore, transgredienti autem et deieranti contraria horum.

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California came within one vote of getting a single-payer health care system for everyone in 2006. That one vote was Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of SB 840.

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It could pay for this operation and others or pay its CEO another 28 million--like Cigna paid him last year. Just how many mansions in the trendy vacation spots around the globe does he believe he's entitled to? Oh I forget, mustn't engage in class envy. It's almost enough for me to wish there really was a hell.

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This is one outstanding example of the dire need for single payer government run healthcare for all Americans!

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and I hope you break those CIGNA shits!

plur

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I like to run around Alternet and espouse the virtue of the free markets. This CIGNA episode is an example of the failure of private insurance. Now is the moment of truth. I hope HR departments will refuse to business with CIGNA. Health insurance is a highly valuable form of compensation to an employee. CIGNA is the cheapo form of that compensation....it says, "we just want to appear as though we care about our employees." Like it or not, capitalism is what we got. It's time to put pressure on decision makers as to the insurance company they do business with.

I am familiar with the arguments in favor of universal coverage, single payer, etc. But right now we have a system in place, and if any universal system comes into being, it will takes its cues from the moral outrage expressed at this particular incident. I guess being covered by CIGNA is better than no coverage at all (which is an argument in favor of universal, probably), but people should consider CIGNA as a sub-standard benefit. Make noise, be heard, if only because we might not get universal coverage. The market takes its cues from dollars. Now is the time to withhold those dollars.

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It's really too bad someone couldn't find out who all of Cigna's clients are ,and get some kind of grassroots effort going to get as many clients as possible to drop Cigna. Also, anyone owning stock should sell out. I realize that all the providers strictly work on profit, but at least it would be a start. Take these assholes source of income away.

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The Republicans, in denying Americans a government funded and run health care system, force us to give our money to Insurance Companies, and then the Insurance Companies keep it, and don't provide health care. And then when they do provide health care, it's only after the Insurance Companies take their 40% cut off the top (of our money) for paying corporate salaries and stock options, and administrative costs (largly to teams of clerical workers who try to get out of paying benefits.)
Get rid of these evil, stupid, grasping Republicans and get us a government that is going to provide us with a sensible health care system.

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Captions or transcripts. I'm through being nice. Provide one or the other. You have plenty of readers with varying levels of hearing impairments. Get. With. The. Program.

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