AHIP laundered $100 million through Chamber of Commerce to kill healthcare reform.

[TrollBuster9090]

Check this graphic out. Why is Medicare so efficient, and have such a low overhead compared to private HMO insurance? Mystery solved. Because Medicare's overhead doesn't include the cost of Ben Nelson's swimming pool, or Mitch McConnell's last vacation. It also doesn't include William McGuire's $1.6 billion compensation package as head of United Health-Group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_W._McGuire#Options_backdating




This story from CNN indicates that Aetna contributed $7million to lobby Congress to kill healthcare reform:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/14/news/economy/aetna-political-contributions/index.htm?iid=HP_LN

And THIS story indicates that AHIP (American Health Insurance Plans-an HMO association) funneled $100 million through the Chamber of Commerce to lobby Congress to kill healthcare reform:
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/ahip-gave-100-million-us-chamber-kill-healt

No doubt they'll put up equivalent sums of money to try to defeat Obama and the Democrats in November for the purpose of killing it before it gets off the ground. This is their last chance, because one of the provisions of Obamacare that has yet to kick in is the provision that strictly limits how much of your premium has to be spent on healthcare and how much can be wasted on overhead (INCLUDING the overhead of bribing Congress).

Now you know why your premiums are so high.

[TheWraith]

1. And yet people still insist that HCR was somehow a boon to the insurance industry.

After they spend a fortune of fortunes trying their best to kill it, screaming and clawing the entire way.

[shcrane71]

2. You think that $107 Million was spent without getting any goodies out of the ACA?

We didn't get even so much as a public option, and we're waiting for the SCOTUS to tell us if it's Constitutional to require people to buy health insurance from these vultures or end up paying a fine.

We got screwed.

[TrollBuster9090]

4. We did get screwed, blued, but not (yet) tattooed.

Removing the public option was an outrage, and gutting the idea of a NATIONAL HC exchange in favor of a bunch of half-assed little state exchanges was a cop out. However, even those exchanges would have lowered the price of insurance, and the provision forbidding HMOs from refusing to insure people with pre-existing conditions was a win. A small win, but a win nonetheless.

So, we got screwed, blued, but not tattooed.

However, we'll get tattooed as well, as soon as Scalia is finished striking down the ACA.



ANTONIN SCALIA (not exactly as shown)

[shcrane71]

5. I don't want it struck down either because I think that some states (well... Vermont)

could still get a single payer, and I'm trying to figure out how to move there.

[TrollBuster9090]

6. True! There was talk of single payer in California, as I recall. nt

[shcrane71]

7. That might be easier to get to than Vermont, though my maple syrup bill

would decrease exponentially in Vermont, not California.

[TrollBuster9090]

8. But your bill for ORANGES would be lower! :)

[shcrane71]

9. Yeah, oranges are prolly better for me.

[AndyTiedye]

13. For Some Reason Maple Syrup Isn't That Expensive Here

Seems about the same as what we were paying in New England.

[shcrane71]

14. Real maple syrup? It's expensive in most of the Midwest, but

less expensive in Northern Wisconsin.

[TrollBuster9090]

3. I'm not surprised they'd say that, given that they're somehow able to claim Medicare is bloated and

inefficient, and then in the same breath, turn around and complain that Obama "cut $500 million from Medicare" without shame or embarrassment. I'd be embarrassed to hold a coin up in front of somebody's face and say "heads I win, tails you lose." But apparently the GOP has no trouble at all saying the equivalent of that to their idiot supporters.

"Obama is a wimp, and also a Chicago gangster thug."
"Obama is a socialist, who's also in bed with the big banks, HMOs and pharmaceutical companies."
"Obama is a muslim, but also a liberation theologist."
"Medicare should be eliminated, but Obama is a villain for cutting $500 million from it" (Cutting out the waste of Medicare part D)

Amazingly, all of these contradictions make perfect sense to people who wear teabags on their heads.

[Egalitarian Thug]

10. What a shock, not! Thanks for posting.

I'm really looking forward to the pie fight this is going to spark with the absolutists from both sides.

[glinda]

11. kick

[ProfessionalLeftist]

12. Deadly Spin

Wendell Potter's excellent book tells that story and so much more about how for-profit insurance industry destroyed health care reform. The media? Complicit, as usual.

[Ghost of Huey Long]

15. common sense requires medicare for all

We have no difficult problem to solve in America, and that is the view of nearly everyone with whom I have discussed the matter here in Washington and elsewhere throughout the United States—that we have no very difficult problem to solve.

It is not the difficulty of the problem which we have; it is the fact that the rich people of this country—and by rich people I mean the super-rich—will not allow us to solve the problems.