Political Discussions
You lie!!! Honest...
Posted by anticsrocks • 9/29/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: fear mongering, health care, obama, rationing, reform, socialized medicine, you lie
In his much hyped speech about health care to the joint session of Congress President Obama said, "Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer had more than doubled in size. That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America."
Too bad it wasn't true. She did lose her insurance, which is a horrible thing to happen, particularly right before a much needed procedure. But she lost it because when she enrolled, she withheld a previous heart condition and lied about her weight.
What we have here is a classic case of what Ann Coulter said – “If you want to know what the left is up to, pay attention to what they are accusing the right of.” Obama is just fear mongering. Yep, that is what the right has been accused of all summer and then the left’s fearless leader gets up on national TV and does it big time.
He could have told the truth and lauded the Republican Congressman who helped the woman get her insurance back and get her procedure that did save her life. And that would have been a much more effective anecdote. He would have scored points for bipartisanship by giving an atta-boy to Rep. Joe Barton. But instead, he took the low road.
www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/29/obamas-health-care-horror-story-inaccur...
User Comments
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Damn her for trying to stay alive! THE BITCH!!!-
Yes, how incredibly horrible of the big mean companies to invalidate a contract where they were defrauded.
She tried to defraud them, and didn't succeed. It's like feeling sorry for the thief that couldn't get the TV out of the window he broke to get in... -
But of course she would have had access access to care regardless of her condition, because we have the "best healthcare system in the world." How silly of me
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She DOES Have access to the best healthcare system in the world.
She just doesn't want to pay for it. -
lets be real. The insurance company had access to the facts all along, before she ever made payment. It was only after they found that they might have to shell some money out that their DEATH PANEL took action
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I love it when CSI talks like this. It exposes the cold hard logic of the insurance companies and those who are doing their bidding. -
perhaps those who "advise [their] corporate boards"
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Both of you are making good points. Agit, yes it is wrong that insurance companies deny people coverage on preexisting conditions. Insurance companies are in a unique business where they must answer to the patients first and not the share holders. Lives are more important than money. On the other hand csi is also making a good point. The woman clearly lied about her health history and is a breach of contract. So why should the company pay out to help someone who is not honest with them. Especially when some of these procedures costs are in the tens and thousands of dollars.-
unfortunately there isn't a clear market-based solution to the problem. A company could not obviously operate in a pure market if they acted like a charity or a social insurance program. The market is excellent at distributing those things which are largely discretionary to the consumer, but sometimes fails when it comes to absolute necessities.
If indeed she knowingly omitted that information, that IS wrong. I do however note that her breast cancer had nothing directly to do with her heart condition.
I also wonder how so much can be spent on "administration" if they don't check incoming policies. -
But the market is our religion. DIdn't Jesus write about the invisible hand?
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You're thinking of Adam Smith... and he was just a moral philosopher.
BTW, if you ever read the original passage in 'Theory of Moral Sentements' (in which it provides the basis for "trickle-down", rather than "Laissez-Faire" as the term is used in Wealth of Nations) it is more of a pragmatic qualification to his moral philosophizing as the the vanity of the obsession of some with burgeoning. -
deadpan voice, as in my previous post/
"Just a moral philosopher," you say? Impossible! Then why is this invisible hand stuff religion? Maybe we are dealing with a prophet of some kind?
/deadpan voice -
Many 18th Century philosophers actually beleived that morality was embedded in the human conscience, and that it was only conditioned for evil by cultural traditions.
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wp
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It baffles me when I see that people actually think defrauding an insurance company is ok.
No one said that it is good when Insurance companies drop coverage, no one said it is good when they decline for pre-existing conditions. That is not what this is about.
The customer has a right to know up front what they are buying.
The company likewise has a right to know who they are insuring, so that they can price the policy accordingly.
Not disclosing pre-existing conditions, lying about health risks etc. Is contract fraud.
Fraud, for those that don't know it is a felony.
People talk about how evil the company is, when in fact, the people that do this and JUST get dropped should be counting their lucky stars that they aren't prosecuted as well.
Agit8r.
You said that "they had access to the information all along".. This may be true, but it isn't good money management to go through all customers entire backgrounds when they sign up. That would be prohibitively expensive, and would raise the cost to ALL customers.
Since the company has a right to assume that the customer is honest in their representation. It only makes sense to check those facts when that customer is about to bring a large cost to bear.
Now, guess what the kicker here is. Had this customer been an HONEST person, they would have gotten their coverage. But as it is now, she is a criminal and got caught.-
If you own an automobile and do not have full coverage insurance on it and then you run into a tree, should you be able to go to an insurance company, but a policy and then expect them to repair your car?
No, of course not.
Should the government force that insurance company to pay out on your previously wrecked car? How long would insurance companies stay in business that way?
The insurance industry, particularly the health insurance companies are among the most heavily regulated, if not THE MOST heavily regulated industries in America. The onerous mandates forced upon insurance companies in the name of special interest groups drives the costs of premiums up and also makes insurance companies look for loopholes such as the one in the OP. Does that make it right? No, but the insurance companies have to stay solvent to pay out on claims.
However the point of the OP was how Obama twisted the facts in this case and added a lie about it to fear monger. Odd that no one on the left is upset with him over that fact. But if someone on the right says anything about universal or government run health care being unconstitutional; or about the fact that you cannot take $600 billion out of Medicare AND extend coverage to millions more people WITHOUT cutting care somewhere, then they are fear mongering. -
OF course they aren't upset, they are too busy praying to him.
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It all started with a trip to the dermatologist visit though, where the doctors finding raised a red flag because they interpreted his diagnosis of her skin condition as pre-cancerous, that is when the investigation started, because they don't like to deal with pre-cancerous skin conditions, people tend to have to go to the dermatologist a lot for checks and minor skin procedures when they have pre-cancerous skin ailments.
She had been given medicine many years earlier for a rapid heart beat and hadn't taken the medicine in a couple of years because her rapid heartbeat was gone, it did not occur to her that she had a heart condition, and she listed her weight a 5 pounds less than it was. I wonder how many people actually list their exact weight, especially woman. Goodness people can gain ten pounds in a month, what are they going to do cancel the policy of everyone who weighed 10 pounds less when they signed up?
"When she was revoked the company listed four questions it said she answered inaccurately on her form and a fifth that was insufficiently addressed."
It was Republican, Rep. Joe Barton, that got the insurance reinstated by the way. He didn't see any fraud.
Reagan used the Welfare Queen story in the same way, and one might say, as with the above, though the punch line was the same he was actually lying.-
A lot of info there cooper. Any links to show proof? You do tend to offer "facts" without substantiation quite frequently.
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So far, the preponderance of bad fact-checking on this board has not been by Cooper.
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Well then providing solid support, links and proof wouldn't be hard would it?
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What's more annoying than anything is that adults believe anything without looking up the facts.If you are commenting on it isn't it your responsibility to have looked up the fact of the case. Her interviews and the fact that the Republican Congressman went to bat for this case is available even at the most meager news sites. It took me two seconds to find those facts and before commenting everyone should actually look it up themselves. The Reagan Welfare Queen deception is common knowledge, something learned in college political science classes, it can, I think be found in a more pedestrian book by George Lakoff titled "The political mind: why you can't understand 21st-century politics with an 18th century Brain".
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So, in other words cooper - No, you won't offer back up to your claims. Thanks for your input.
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I'm used to discussing things with people who have the facts not the propaganda. This is an interesting social experiment, these boards, but I'm not the baby sitter, you are big people. I know no other adult place online where people provide constant links to general easily research able knowledge. Knowledge that people should have if they are posting.
The Beaton story was an interview. I don't have it bookmarked, but it is out there. She also testified in front of Congress in June the (House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee - who were looking into the "immoral--and illegal" practice in which some insurance companies engage), and that is where her Republican Congressman got hold of this and called Blue Cross and blue Shield out for their unethical practices.
Obviously if she was perpetrating fraud this would not have happened. So the whole point of this post is really moot. He wasn't using someone perpetrating fraud as an example, and her interview, I posted above believe it or not, explains how it went down.
I can't fault the President for actually using a real person who had issue, and was vindicated with the help of a Republican Congressman, who was outraged btw. She was not charged with fraud.
The Welfare Queen, on the other hand never existed at all, but Reagan was forgiven because it is well known that politicians sometimes use stereotypes to make their point even if they are made up. Ot that at least is how it is spun when you read anything on this very common political phenomena. -
Well, when I offer facts I try not to be so lazy as to not provide a link backing up what I say. Otherwise how do we know what based in fact and what is propaganda?
Besides you missed the entire point of the OP, completely.
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The thing about the OP is that, even if it were true (though I'll defer to Cooper on what she has found) it wouldn't undermine even a tiny fraction of what Obama was talking about.
I know right-wingers on this board don't set any store by FactCheck.org, despite the fact that the site lays its cases out very clearly for all to follow, but here is its take on the OP's tiny question, but on the main policy claims of the speech: factcheck.org/2009/09/obamas-health-care-speech/ It seems to me that that would actually be what is interesting.
Unless, of course, policy is irrelevant and scoring points in the Great Big Game of Lies Real and Imagined is.-
So you are alright with Obama lying to the American public? No wonder you were so mad at Joe Wilson...
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As long as It isn't a republican that lies, then it's a horrendous act that should be punished by being drawn and quartered.
Must be that Republicans are just that much more honest. One simply can't apply their standards to Democrats..
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I know, those blasted conservatives and their honesty. If we could all possess the morals of the liberal left, then each individual....wait, scratch that. If we all acted like liberals, then we would cease to be individuals.
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And if we were all running the Left's style of "honesty"
we'll all need to have the word "IS" defined to us...
We'll all get to redefine sexual relations
I DID NOT HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH THAT WOMAN...
However, I like my cigars to taste like tobacco, maybe with a slight hint of cedar, nothing else thank you very much!
So I'll stay Conservative. -
But when Clinton lied no one died!!! Gosh, you forget that? Well, except maybe the prestige of the office of the Presidency.
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These are politicians we are talking about. What do you expect, the truth?
Before any particular party starts claiming the moral ground they would do well to remember "I DID NOT HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH THAT WOMAN" as csiunatc says.
However phrases like "READ MY LIPS: NO NEW TAXES" should also spring to mind. We are none of us perfect. Especially politicians. -
I completely agree. We should also remember that famous phrase, "I will also hold myself, as President to a new standard of openness.” - Barack H. Obama
He also said, during that speech that the way to make government responsible is to make it accountable; and the way to make it accountable is to make it transparent. Transparency is what we were promised. Obama went on to say in that speech, "Let me say it as simply as I can; transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this Presidency."
See, we all know that politicians lie. But when a politician promises to rise above the rest and have the "most open and transparent" administration, it is our duty as citizens to hold him to that. Since America was founded on personal liberties and freedoms, I don't expect someone who has lived under the umbrella of a nanny state to fully understand the concept.
Or how about what El Presidente said about health care reform debate?
"To achieve health care reform, “I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies—they’ll get a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."
Gee I guess my cable company doesn't carry THAT channel, because I still am waiting to watch those negotiations... -
"open and transparent" yes poiticians will promise you that along with "family values" etc etc Yes and "personal liberties and freedoms" while turning a blind eye to slavery.
Maybe living in a nanny state makes one cynical but it certainly does not reduce ones's understanding of "personal liberties and freedoms". It seems a common misconception to think that the founding fathers discovered the concept.
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