Nurses Association: HMOs Killing People for Profit

September 9, 2009 (LPAC)—"The routine denial of care by private insurers is like the elephant in the room no one in the present national healthcare debate seems to want to talk about. Nothing in any of the major bills advancing in the Senate or House, or proposed by the administration, would challenge this practice." These HMOs are "death panels," says the California Nurses Association, in a release of shocking figures it has compiled on HMOs' denial of care—and neither Obama nor Congress proposes to lay a finger on them.

With this statement by Deborah Burger, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, a challenge is thrown to Obama's Sept. 7 rant in Cincinnati, "to the opponents of this reform: What is your alternative?"

What is Obama's alternative? He ruled out single-payer insurance reform from the outset, declared that the private HMOs would continue running the show under his "reform," and demanded to set up a copy of Britain's national denial-of-care death panel (known by its initials NICE) in order to slash Medicare/Medicaid spending.

Lyndon LaRouche, who's led the campaign to stop Obama's Nazi "reform," has a very clear alternative: Ban the HMOs, repealing the 1973 Nixon law which created them; re-establish the Hill-Burton hospital capacity standards in every state; and pay for this by single-payer, Medicare-for-all insurance.

The CNA/NNOC has just shown that in California the HMOs have rejected more than a fifth of all medical care payment claims for eight years. CNA/NNOC researchers analyzed data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. From 2002 to June 30, 2009, six of the largest insurers operating in California rejected 47.7 million care claims—22% of all claims.

Here is the breakdown: PacifiCare (a UnitedHealth Group HMO) refused to pay 39.6% of all claims; Cigna, 32.7%; HealthNet, 30%; Kaiser Permanente, 28.3%; Blue Cross, 27.9%; and Aetna, 6.4%. In numerous notorious cases this has resulted directly in premature death: for example, of 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge, California, denied a liver transplant payment by Cigna; and of 17-year-old Nick Columbo of Placentia, denied bone cancer treatment.

And, it resulted in the top 18 insurance giants racking up $15.9 billion in profits in the state in 2008.

CNA/NNOC supports the alternative Obama took off the table, expanding Medicare to cover all Americans.