I have just found out that one of my dearest and closest friends who died in April was actually killed by the bureaucracy of Aetna Insurance. She fell in her home a year or so ago, and severely injured her brain. She was unconscious for 29 days and then after regaining consciousness went to a rehabilitation facility near her home. She was treated there with a variety of the therapies one needs to regain functioning after such an accident. One physical therapist informed Aetna that she was not making significant progress, a situation which was untrue. Based on this one PT report, Aetna cut off all therapy to my friend. She was sent home to wither away. Her family tried and tried to get help for her, and to appeal Aetna's terrible bureaucratic decision. No luck. We later found out that the physical therapist had never treated anyone with a brain injury before. No one expected my friend to die so soon, but she did, in April, leaving a grieving and very angry family behind. My friend was the most open hearted, generous spirited human being I have ever known, and now, due to Aetna's and the "health" insurance industry's profit goals, she is dead. Tell me about the problems with a possible "government-run plan." I would take those any day than what we have now. People are dying needlessly in this country just for the sake of corporate profits. Just ask any Frenchman, Canadian, or Japanese how they like their health systems. They have long had what we do not, universal, affordable, and high-quality health care for all of their people. My friend and her family thought they had the best possible insurance coverage here. All Aetna needed was one tiny excuse, the word of an improperly-trained physical therapist to cut her off from the coverage she and her family had been paying on for years. That is a problem that one way or another, most of us have either dealt with, know someone who has dealt with it, or will deal with in the future if we do not stop this corporate greed. It is killing us.

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It occurred to me too that "death panels" are basically what America has now, with the private insurance companies constantly denying care to the truly needy. (How do you know you will be denied care? If you truly need that care, essentially!)

Too bad that Sarah Palin's "health care reform is EVIL" rhetoric didn't inspire Big Media to also realize that it is pure hypocrisy coming from her blabbering mouth.

You know what is EVIL, Sarah? Big insurance companies, who can easily afford to spend the money, denying people care to save a couple bucks, and then those people DIE as a result! That's EVIL, Sarah, just like you! F*** you.

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The two comments above are exactly right. Insurance companies make money by denying care, and they will deny anything. When I worked for Equitable Life, I had to deny claims for well child care, vaccinations, colds, just about anything except a broken bone. There was nothing that their insurance covered.

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Any company that provides a service can only maximize their profits by NOT providing the service. Therefore, we get the current situation we are in. Pay the premiums, but dont try to collect on the benefits.

The shift to Profit based health care started with Saint Ronald Regan in thge 1980s, and has grown from 17% of the health care plans then to 83% of the health care plans of today. Soon to be 99%.


You pay premiums for years, only to find that when you need the benefits, THEY AREN't THERE.

Best thing would be to shift Health Care back into the NON-PROFIT catagory.

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That would make it too easy to find the guilty parties. So they create a blur of beaurocracy that makes it impossible to track down exactly what any one person does. I'd be curious to know how many people it takes at any insurance company to determine whether or not someone is denied coverage. It's not just one. And they never deny services or a procedure, they simply refuse payment. That's their idea of being off the hook and not responsible. I guess if you die it's your decision, not theirs. ANNA

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we might at least get them free funerals? Seriously, I'm 70 years old. If the government death panels are going to kill me, they are going to have to get started. I've had socialized medicine for 5 years now.

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