Posted on 09/26/2010 6:46:39 PM PDT by sickoflibs
FROM THE INTRO : And big insurance. Well, they are back at it. They are threatening your children. They are denying coverage for sick children to save a buck, and the Republicans are cheering them on from the sidelines.This story just has me fuming. We‘ll talk about it.
(clip)
SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW, the Battleground story tonight? Well, as predicted, big insurance has declared war on sick kids and the Republicans, well, they have got their back. On Thursday, the health care reform law will go into effect, that‘s the day after tomorrow, making it illegal for insurance companies to drop coverage for children, get this, with pre-existing conditions. Forty eight hours before the deadline, insurance companies in at least four states are reportedly saying that they are dropping children‘s coverage, well, all together.
The group, health care for America now, broke the story, saying this, “If the insurance companies can casually turn their backs on sick children now, who will they abandon next? This offensive behavior by the insurance companies is yet another reminder of why the new law is so important and why Republicans‘ call for repeal is so misguided.” There are children in this country who are fighting for their lives. The president and the democrats are fighting to help them and the Republicans? Well, they are fighting to help the insurance companies‘ bottom lines and it really is sickening, isn‘t it?
Joining me now is Wendell Potter, senior fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy and he is the author of the forthcoming book, “Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans.” Mr. Potter, good to have you with us tonight.
WENDELL POTTER, CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY: Thank you, Ed.
SCHULTZ: Who‘s doing it and what are they doing?
POTTER: Well, the insurance companies are showing their true colors. You might remember that soon after the president signed this bill into law, they were tripping over themselves to, as part of their pr charm offensive to say that they would be accelerating one part of the bill to be sure that they were covering young people up to the age of 26 on their parents‘ policies, which the new law requires and that, too, will take effect this week. That was—they are not even making good on that promise, but what we are seeing now is what they are doing is showing that they have the interest of Wall Street more at heart than they do the young people of this country.
SCHULTZ: OK, so, does the bill have teeth? What can the government do? What can Congress do? The law has been passed and now you have got complete defiance by these insurance companies?
POTTER: The democrats need to point to this as—to remind voters, frankly, that—of the importance of passing this bill in the first place. We need it to rein in this industry. This industry is dominated by a cartel of big insurance companies, big for-profit insurance companies that are more beholden to Wall Street than they are to us and certainly to our own children.
SCHULTZ: You know, I expected the fight back, but I didn‘t expect them to go after the pre-existing condition. That this voter values summit, this is Mike Huckabee, I thought it was a preacher but this is what he said about pre-existing conditions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: It‘s such a warm message to say and we‘re not going to deny anyone from a pre-existing condition. OK fine. Then let‘s do that with our property insurance. And you can call your insurance agent and say, I‘d like to buy some insurance for my house. They say, tell me about your house. Well, sir, it burned down yesterday, but I‘d like to insure it today. And he will say, I‘m sorry, but we can‘t insure it after it is already burned. Well, no pre-existing conditions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Doesn‘t that pretty much speak volumes of where they are, Mr. Potter?
POTTER: It does and shame on him for making that analogy. We are talking about human lives here, we‘re not talking about property, we‘re talking about the lives of our children here and that is just—that is just astounding that he would do that. First of all, let‘s take a step back and look at the health care system we have now. We have a system that really penalizes people when they get sick, the very people who really need to have insurance and who need care are often the very people who can‘t get it.
SCHULTZ: But the legal recourse here, it sounds like it is limited at this point. I mean, you say the Congress, the democrats ought to go out there and make the case to the American people, but, you know, if I break the law, you break the law, well, there‘s ramification. Here are big insurance companies not adhering to a law that was passed. What‘s the ramification?
POTTER: The only ramification is that they have to, at least on Thursday, begin adhering to the law because that‘s when this provision takes effect. The only thing that we are—the thing that we should learn from this is you cannot trust these companies. Do not believe anything they are saying. We have a very evil system and a system that these companies really can‘t do the morally correct thing.
SCHULTZ: Yes. Mr. Potter, good to have you with us tonight.
Congratulations on your book. You‘re truth-teller, I appreciate your time.
POTTER: Thank you very much, Ed.
MSNBC The Ed (Shultz) show Sept 21, 2010 full video
Yep the A-10s are strafing Mott Children’s hospital in Ann Arbor as I write this.
Sheesh, what a maroon.
I don’t know how anyone can watch that idiot.
No bambi declared war on all sick people, starting with the the sickest and the oldest and the babies:
“It ain’t worth the money to treat them, they are just gonna run up a huge bill and then die anyway.”
Ed, let me introduce you to the law of unintended consequences.
Ed who?
How typical...the liberals create an effect that they were too stupid to expect, even though they were warned, and then blame the people who warned them for their own actions.
It seem like yesterday the Dems were claiming these HI companies were making a fortune. Now they are attacking them for puling out of the business.
See, just proof we need a public plan that cares more about ‘you’ than profits (be prepared to hear more and more of this argument from them.)
Ed Shultz is so stupid he couldn’t find his butt with both hands. It’s no wonder he shot his hunting dog.
schultz....wanna be.
Yet....Obama is still bombing ‘innocents’ in Pakistan and Afghanistan with hell fire missiles and putting death orders on American citizens without trial..like Al what ever his terrorist name is...lol.
Kinda like they are abandoning marxist principles to preserve marxist priciples....
Hmmmmmm........learn how to grow your own food folks..the ‘neccessary famines’ are on the way.
so why not tax libs at 50%. Give them a head start on all conservatives.
They can report to us. All of them, low , middle, an high. An so not to be taking from the poor, they pay nothing under 18k 1 child, 1 wife an then 5%.
One thing you can always count on with Liberals.
When the defecation hits the rotating device: IT IS ALWAYS, someone else’s fault.
They can flip blame around quicker than a juggler keeping 20 different things in the air.
It’s always for the children to Democrats - we should all pay for the children (up to the age of 26 or so..)... Sometimes paying for what we want is not always the best for everyone else...except the government.
We have a very evil system and a system that these companies really can‘t do the morally correct thing.
Instead of complaining why don't you smarter and morally superior do-gooders
get together and form a not-for-profit health insurance co-op.
Show us how it's done.
I thought this Obamacare thing was going to fix the healthcare industry.
Ed Schultz is a buffoon. Or is that baboon? Ah, either one works for that idiot.
I have tried to counter their greed arguments with that exact point/suggestion you make above. They respond with 'BLA-BLA-BLA'. These greed arguments are just emotional bait like ‘tax cuts for the rich’. They really only want :
1) The low risk, young middle class to pay for the high risk,
2) the rich to pay the most, progressive funding.
3) Men to pay for women.
4) make us pay for bad behaviour and rewarded for the good behaviour.
They know that ‘Honest Michael Moores’s Health insurance’ company would go bankrupt or charge the most even with no profits. None of the liberals would invest or give a dime of their own money to help others.
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