“I believe we live in America. We don’t live in the Soviet Union,” Lesko said. “So, government should not be telling the organizations or mom and pop employers to do something against their moral beliefs.”
Margaret, do you remember how angry we were the day we finally realized that women’s legs are not harder to shave than men’s faces, but rather razors made for women can’t hold a candle to those made for men? And the women’s razors are more expensive to boot. I’d like to meet the asshats at Gillette and give them a piece of my mind. Did they really think we wouldn’t mind just because they made the razors pink?
And speaking of pink, this whole mess with Komen should be a wake-up call to women everywhere. Komen knew damn well that this had nothing to do with mammograms and everything to do with politics. They just thought we wouldn’t notice because the ribbons were pink. They knew what they were getting when they hired Karen Handel. She ran for office in Georgia with a campaign promise to close down Planned Parenthood. Exactly what women’s health clinics did they think we women were using for years before we started racing for a cure? Did they think that the millions of us who had gone to Planned Parenthood before we had health insurance (and even after) weren’t aware of the services we were provided? Trust me. When you go to a place and have a doctor poke around your hoo-ha, you pay attention.
Nancy Brinker, shame on you. You honestly thought your fellow women were so stupid that we would think your reason for defunding Planned Parenthood was somehow different than the never-ending cry for defunding that comes from the far right every election cycle? Well I am here to tell you that it is bad enough when it comes from the male-dominated, testosterone-filled legislatures. But when it comes from a supposedly apolitical women’s health organization, it’s unforgivable. Your original intent when you started this organization was noble and I commend you. But honey, you have lost your way. So much so that you were willing to put tens of thousands of women in harm’s way because the Republican party wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant.
I, for one, am tired of pink razors. And I know I speak for millions of women when I say that from now on if you push us, we will push back. From this point forward, when someone says that you fight like a girl, they had better watch out. We girls know how to fight when our backs are against the wall. No longer is it acceptable that we are half the population but only 16% of the Senate, 16% of the House of Representatives and 16% of the Governors. Margaret, did you know that the proportion of women in America’s Congress is about half the average for national legislative bodies throughout the world? Well honey, you and I are not dead yet, and we sure as hell aren’t leaving this world anytime soon if the women’s movement to date has only gotten us this far.
In the past Margaret and I have stood up for Planned Parenthood. But that is no longer good enough. Today, tomorrow and every day that we have left on this planet, we won’t just stand up for them, we will stand up for women everywhere. We will vote for them. We will advocate for them. We will fight for them. And we will start right here. Right now. My grandson tells us that people from all over the nation and even from other countries read this web page blog of ours. Well, I can’t imagine why, but if you are going to read it, then you should use your head for something other than a hat rack and learn a thing or two about the real Planned Parenthood.
Yes. They provide abortion services. Deal with it because they also do so much more and we remember the world before them. It wasn’t pretty.
I called a Board Member for Planned Parenthood in my community and we had a good talk. I found out that even I didn’t know the whole story. And after you read this, I challenge you to do what she asked me to do: inform the uninformed and educate the misinformed.
Planned Parenthood provides healthcare – pap smears, breast and pelvic exams, colposcopies, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and birth control for both women and men – most without access to any other health care services. About 97% of their services are for this basic healthcare. If you want to talk about abortion services then you should at least know the truth. Providing that service for women who are faced with that daunting decision accounts for less than 3% of what Planned Parenthood does nationally. Less than three percent. They also provide prenatal care, vasectomies and adoption referrals. One Planned Parenthood clinic does more in a day to prevent abortions than the entire Pro-Life movement does in a year. We might not agree on abortion, but we should at least be able to agree that they should be safe, legal and rare.
If you want to talk about Planned Parenthood then talk about the thousands of uninsured women for whom the doctor or nurse at Planned Parenthood is the only health professional they will see this year. Tell them about the divorced 40-year-old woman who, for the first time, finds herself without health insurance and how she turned to Planned Parenthood to ensure that she is able to maintain her health and wellness. Planned Parenthood has never been just about sex and birth control. It has always been about ensuring women are healthy enough to care for the children they one day may bring into this world. And yes, it is also about making sure they are informed in their decisions not to bring children into this world.
Tell your Tea Party friends what good fiscal sense Planned Parenthood education and prevention programs make – that for every dollar spent providing family-planning services, $4 are saved in Medicaid costs. Remind them that more than one-third of the individuals who seek help from Planned Parenthood make less than $50 a week. That’s right – $50 a week.
If you are going to talk about Planned Parenthood, then at least have the courage to speak the truth. We knew the Komen decision was politically motivated because we know that far right politicians are the ones who continue to spread untruths and misinformation about Planned Parenthood.
Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich all stand ready to restrict a woman’s access to birth control and her right to make her own childbearing decisions. They will cater to the far right and happily deny essential health care to millions of women. The Republican field is united in its determination to overturn Roe v. Wade; to appoint Supreme Court justices supportive of that goal; and to end government funding of any kind to Planned Parenthood for family planning services, cancer screenings and other vital health services provided to low-income women. By the way, Planned Parenthood does not receive government funding for abortions. Although for the life of me, I can’t imagine why not.
Mr. Gingrich has called for punishing judges who make abortion rulings not to his liking. Mitt Romney supported the “personhood” initiative in Mississippi that would have given human fertilized eggs the legal rights and protections that apply to people, and outlawed abortion as well as some of the most widely used forms of contraception and in vitro fertilization. For goodness sakes Rick Santorum, the candidate who won the first primary this year, doesn’t even believe in birth control at all.
If you really, honestly want to reduce abortions in this country, the last thing you want to do is vote for a Republican. If you want to reduce abortions start in your own home by educating your children. Teach your sons to respect women and arm your daughters with information about birth control. If you are so outraged by abortions that your only criteria for a presidential candidate is that he be obsessed with my uterus, then arm your daughters with all the information she needs to protect herself from all those sons who were raised by politicians in Texas and Virginia. And if you really care, make a donation to Planned Parenthood or this other organization called Annie’s List. My grandson says that if you “click” on the underlined words in the previous sentence it will take you to a place you can make a donation on the internet. It couldn’t be any easier than that.
This November, I say we show them what it really means to Fight Like A Girl. Somebody call Gloria Steinem because we’ve got some more balls to bust. I mean it. Really.
The debate over healthcare reform, like just about everything these days in this highly polarized America, has become contentious. This time however, things are a bit different. The rhetoric has risen to a frenzied pitch and there is actual public violence like we haven’t seen since perhaps the Viet Nam protests. There are a good many talking points in this debate that are misleading - many outright lies - yet the masses are swallowing the bait and taking protest to the streets. So, with apologies to Michael Shermer, I will ask…
… Why do people believe strange things?
In a survey and interview-based study published in a recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions concentrated on the most curious aspect of the 2004 presidential election: the strength, intensity and resilience of belief held by many of the Bush administration lie that Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
The paper, authored by researchers Steven Hoffman, Ph.D., a visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo; Monica Prasad, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University; Andrew Perrin, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, addresses what it refers to as a "serious challenge to democratic theory and practice that results when citizens with incorrect information cannot form appropriate preferences or evaluate the preferences of others."
The study revealed that, although this belief influenced the election outcome, it did not result from as much pro-Bush propaganda as it did from the urgent need by many in this country to justify a war to which we were already committed. The findings illustrate possible reasons why some Americans form or accept false beliefs regarding Obama's citizenship, and in the healthcare debate.
The journal article, titled "There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification," calls unsubstantiated beliefs, a "serious challenge to democratic theory and practice," and the authors discuss how and why such beliefs continue to be maintained by so many voters for so long in the absence of supporting evidence.
Co-author Dr. Hoffman says that over the course of the 2004 presidential campaign, several polls showed that majorities of respondents believed that Saddam Hussein was either partly or largely responsible for the 9/11 attacks, a percentage that declined very slowly, dipping below 50 percent only in late 2003. "This misperception that Hussein was responsible for the Twin Tower terrorist attacks was very persistent, despite all the evidence suggesting that no link existed," Hoffman says. In the study a rather substantial sampling of voters reported believing in a link between Saddam and 9/11. The researchers presented the available evidence of the link, along with the evidence that there was no link, and then urged respondents to justify the incorrect belief. For all but one, the overwhelming evidence that there was no link left no impact on their arguments in support of the link.
Hoffman says "Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as 'motivated reasoning' (similar to ‘confirmation bias’), which suggests that rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe. "In fact," says Hoffman. "For the most part people completely ignore contrary information. [the study] demonstrates voters' ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information."
So while pundits and politicians continue to blame the all-so-obvious misinformation campaigns of the Bush administration and FOX news, this study argues that premise and points to an individual or collective desire to believe in a pre-conceived worldview instead. While these deluded individuals point to the false authorities as support for the belief, it is the individual who is seeking confirmation.
As Hoffman says, "the argument here is that people get deeply attached to their beliefs," and that we humans form “emotional attachments that get wrapped up in our personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter. The problem is that this notion of 'motivated reasoning' has only been supported with experimental results in artificial settings. We decided it was time to see if it held up when you talk to actual voters in their homes, workplaces, restaurants, offices and other deliberative settings."
The same phenomena appear to be at work in this healthcare debate, with lies and hypocrisy bubbling from the bowels of advocates and opponents alike. Even as the bills have passed both houses we are seeing the talking heads still on the offensive. It don’t matter what the other side is for, I’m agin it…
The results of this study are rather dramatic, proving that irrespective of which political wing a person is affiliated, individuals exist in mass who are comfortable in their delusion and wishing to not to be confused by facts; almost all refusing to change positions even when confronted with the falsity of beliefs.
We need far more skeptics and many fewer sheep.
This missive was heavily plagiarized from a published interview with Dr. Hoffman, which can be found HERE.
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According to a paper published last year by the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, there was nearly $2.3 trillion spent on health care in 2007, with somewhere between 3% and 10% ($70 – $230 billion) of that lost to fraud. The federal government estimates annual losses to public insurance plans (Medicare/Medicaid/VA, and the various Federal Employees Insurance Plans) to be somewhere north of $60 billion. Doing the math it appears conceivable that as much or more fraud exists with private insurers as with our current public options.
NHCAA estimates that every $2 million invested in fighting health-care fraud returns $17.3 million in recoveries, court-ordered judgments, denial of bogus claims, and related anti-fraud savings. The average private health insurance company Special Investigative Unit (SIU) has an annual budget between $1.9 and $2 million, employs a fulltime staff of 19, maintains 363 open cases, and worked 791 cases in 2007 (last year for which data was available). About 75% of these SIU’s employ forensic data fraud-detection software.
A George Washington University Medical Center paper, released in June, produced figures similar to the NHCAA’s, and detailed fraud schemes used by the offenders. Miscoding or up-coding, double billing, kickbacks, unbundling of procedure charges, forum shopping, ghost patients, unnecessary procedures, and billing for procedures that were never performed the most prevalent.
The paper’s authors called the issue "a systemic problem affecting public and private insurers alike, in the individual market, the employer-sponsored group market and public programs."
Private medical insurance providers are targets for those who would commit fraud. Some fraud is simply opportunistic, and healthcare providers commit a fair share, but the same organized criminals targeting the public payers perpetrate the lion’s share.
Although private insurance fraud probably equals or surpasses the public options, large Medicare and Medicaid fraud convictions get more press. There are several reasons for the publicity disparity. The federal government is required to report fraud in the government programs, and does so in semi-annual reports issued by the U.S. Health and Human Services – Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG). The trials of those violating the Federal False Claims Act are held in federal courts, prosecuted by ambitious Assistant U.S. Attorneys eager to see their name in print. Private insurance frauds are generally prosecuted on the state level where the publicity isn’t so splashy.
The private insurers themselves account for at least a portion of fraudulent activities reported. Earlier this year two South Carolina Blue Cross/Blue Shield employees received short prison sentences for falsely submitting phony medical reimbursement claims and reaping a portion of the rewards.
The Government Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report in 1999 titled “Improprieties by Contractors Compromised Medicare Program Integrity.” Culpable Medicare contractors were identified and their fraudulent actions detailed. The report authors found, since 1993, that criminal or civil actions have been taken against at least six contractors resulting from fraudulent actions while under contract with Medicare. BCBS was the largest offender, with subsidiaries in Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Pennsylvania among those listed as having fleeced the system out of millions of dollars by falsifying or altering documentation. Many of the prosecutions were the result of whistleblowers within the BCBS organizations.
Certainly all of this shows that the problem of healthcare fraud is pervasive, widespread and probably under reported; that incompetence is endemic within the claims systems, both public and private, but more than anything it indicates that monitoring should be improved and enforcement enhanced. Assigning the fox to guard the henhouse is proving to be a dangerous option.
It leaves me wondering how anything that will safeguard taxpayer money will be accomplished with the practices of proprietary private industry and the multitude of carriers, both small and large. The fragmentation and lack of a central database is a glaring loophole in the enforcement system, allowing offenders to game the system. Perhaps, for this reason alone, it points to the validity of a government run (or managed) central health insurance claims center… or even a (Gasp!) single-payer option.
[Thanks to BadTux for the muse]
Wednesday, October 28, 2009The News&Observer of Raleigh, N.C. —Even Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina acknowledges that its timing on two recent mailings was unfortunate.Customers first learned their rates will rise by an average of 11 percent next year. Then they got a flier urging them to send an enclosed preprinted, postage-paid note to Sen. Kay Hagan denouncing what the company says is unfair competition that would be imposed by a government-backed insurance plan. Congress is likely to consider that public option as it debates the health care overhaul."No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it's a slippery slope to a single-payer system," the BCBS flier read. "Who wants that?"Indignant Blue Cross customers, complaining that their premium dollars are funding the campaign, have called Hagan's office to voice support for a public option. They've marked through the Blue Cross message on their postcards and changed it to show they support the public option, then mailed the cards."I hope it backfires," said Mark Barroso, a documentary film maker in Chatham County who is a Blue Cross customer and recipient of the mailings. "I'm doing everything I can to make sure it does."Beth Silberman of Durham said she "went sort of bonkers" about the mailing. "You're hostage to them, and then they pull this," she said. "My new premiums are funding lobbying against competition. It's pretty disgusting."A sample of the postcards being sent to Senator Hagan's compliments of BCBS paid postageA spokesman in Hagan's office, David Hoffman, said the postcards have not yet begun arriving in the senator's office because of the mail screening process, but he said lots of people have called, angry about the insurer's tactics.Blue Cross spokesman Lew Borman said the mailing relied on voter registration records, not a customer list. Since the company controls more than half of the state's health insurance market, the names on the lists overlapped. He declined to reveal how much money the insurer paid for the mailing. He acknowledged the timing was unfortunate but said it was coincidental since one mailing was tied to current events in Washington and the other to when the insurer typically sends its annual notices about rate increases."We said from the beginning we were going to be involved and would tell North Carolinians what kind of impact the health care proposals would have, and that's what we've been doing," Borman said.
“Because, the medicine has been poisoned from day one, in part because of that same revolving door that Congresswoman Kaptur and Simon Johnson were just talking about. Movers and shakers rotate between government and the lucrative private sector at a speed so dizzying they forget who they're working for.”
"Take a close look at that woman sitting behind Montana Senator Max Baucus. He's the Democrat who's the Chairman of the Finance Committee. Liz Fowler is her name. And now get this. She used to work for WellPoint, the largest health insurer in the country. She was Vice President of Public Policy. And now she's working for the very committee with the most power to give her old company and the entire industry exactly what they want: higher profits, and no competition from alternative non-profit coverage that could lower costs and premiums.”
“I'm not making this up. Here's another little eye-opener. The woman who was Baucus' top health advisor before he hired Liz Fowler? Her name is Michelle Easton. Why did she leave the Committee? To go to work -- where else? -- at a firm representing the same company Liz Fowler worked for WellPoint. As a lobbyist.”
Sarah has her death panels, and now Michele rants about sex clinics. These wingers never lose enthusiasm for lying, do they?
"And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what’s going to go on — comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care — is that abortion? Does that mean that someone’s 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser."
The nonpartisan fact checking organization Politifact, rates this one Pants on Fire."
(H/T)
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