Stacie Ritter American hero

[Chris]

CIGNA CEO Ed Hanway owns a beach home valued at $13.6 million. Stacie Ritter, mother of twin girls who were diagnosed with cancer, does not. Ed Hanway made $120.5 million between 2003 and 2008. During the same period, Stacie Ritter was driven into bankruptcy by the cost of her daughters' medical bills, all while being covered by CIGNA. Ed also has $28,881,000 in unexercised stock options. That's enough to pay for 65,638 shots of the human growth hormone that Stacie's twins need to grow properly.

These disparities are just too much. Yesterday, Stacie decided to take action to highlight the great degree of disparity between the Ritters and the Hanways. Listen to her talk about it in her own words:

SEIU - Service Employees International Union - Search Results

 

[Chris]

Fundamentally, the big insurance companies are fighting tooth and nail to make sure they can continue to skim billions off the top of the dollars we spend on health care.

This does not mean that if we win, the insurance companies will lose in some existential sense. If real health insurance reform -- with a strong public option -- is signed into law this fall, we won't have to have a tag day or bake sale for the big health insurers. They are very good at figuring out how to make lots of money.

What is at stake is whether we continue to be the world's greatest health care chumps -- paying 50% more per person for health care and still being 37th in the world in health care outcomes. More importantly, what is at stake is whether the rapacious drive of big health insurance companies to skim off money for Wall Street investors and their corporate CEO's will continue to create health care victims.

Take Stacie Ritter. She's a mother of twins who lives in Pennsylvania.

Both of her daughters, now 11, were diagnosed with leukemia when they were four. They both needed stem cell transplants and other cancer treatments. They did survive, but the treatments damaged the glands that control their growth beyond repair. Their doctors indicated that in order for them to continue to grow normally, they needed regular growth-hormone injections.

But there was a problem. Each time Stacie took her daughter to the doctor for shots, it cost her $440. CIGNA refused to pay.

Stacie and her husband were not about to deny their daughters the right to grow up, so they spent every spare dollar on the injections. In the end, those expenses -- coupled with other costs they had to pay for the twins' cancer treatment -- forced them to declare bankruptcy.

Their story is not unusual. Sixty-two percent of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills -- and often when an insurance company denies care. People think they are doing the responsible thing for their families. They have health insurance, but then a tragic illness hits and they lose everything anyway.

CIGNA didn't refuse to pay for the kids' hormone injections because it hates kids, or wanted the twins to stop growing. It denied the shots because its principal mission has nothing to do with those kids' health -- it is making money.

Ed Hanway, CIGNA's CEO, can tell you about that. In 2008, Ed made $12.2 million. That's $5,883 an hour. Ed makes more in one day than the average worker makes all year long. He makes 30 times more than the President of the United States.

Ed makes enough each day to cover 106 of those shots.

And for CIGNA, the case of Stacie's twins was not unusual.

Doctors said a liver transplant could save Nataline Sarkisyan's life. But CIGNA wouldn't pay for that either. Nataline died in 2007, just before Christmas. She was 17.

That same year, CIGNA CEO Ed Hanway locked in a $73 million golden parachute for his retirement.

The average transplant operation costs about $250,000. Hanway's golden parachute would pay for 292 liver transplants. Nataline needed only one.

Hanway has a number of homes, including a beach house in New Jersey worth $13 million. Many ordinary Americans are losing their only homes each year because of medical bankruptcy.

Of course Hanway is not the exception, he's the rule. Stephen Hemsley is the CEO of UnitedHealth. In 2009 Hemsley made an astonishing amount of money selling stock in UnitedHealth -- $128,000,000. As you might imagine, he has a very nice house too.

Robert Creamer: If the Insurance Companies Win, We Lose

 

[Chris]

This story is really what the healthcare debate is all about.

It is very instructive of why our healthcare costs TWICE as much per capita as the other industrialized nations.

 

[PatekPhilippe]

WWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The evil corporations are taking over the galaxy!!!!!

 

[California Girl]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

 

[DiveCon]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

chris is another of the many MORONS on here

 

[California Girl]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

chris is another of the many MORONS on here

Am I gonna need to start a 'Morons List' for this board?

 

[DiveCon]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

chris is another of the many MORONS on here

Am I gonna need to start a 'Morons List' for this board?

yes
but you likely wont need to actually make a list, they will be quite obvious

 

[Chris]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

The story is true.

It happens every day in America.

The healthcare lobbyists gave members of Congress $3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in the last decade, so they could continue to deny people healthcare.

 

[DiveCon]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

The story is true.

It happens every day in America.

The healthcare lobbyists gave members of Congress $3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in the last decade, so they could continue to deny people healthcare.

how do YOU know its true?

 

[Political Junky]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

The story is true.

It happens every day in America.

The healthcare lobbyists gave members of Congress $3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in the last decade, so they could continue to deny people healthcare.

 

[DiveCon]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

The story is true.

It happens every day in America.

The healthcare lobbyists gave members of Congress $3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in the last decade, so they could continue to deny people healthcare.

ah PJ has the clap again

 

[California Girl]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

The story is true.

It happens every day in America.

The healthcare lobbyists gave members of Congress $3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in the last decade, so they could continue to deny people healthcare.

Ok, let's ignore the 'story' for the moment - because you cannot prove it is true and I know who the SEIU are so I'm not gonna take it on face value because the SEIU have a big dog in this race.

So, let's deal with the other issue. As you say, healthcare lobbyists gave members of Congress $3.4b. So, why are you defending the Democrats? Why do you trust people who took money from special interest gtoups? Because those members of Congress were not all Republicans, quite a lot were Democrats..... and if the healthcare companies are a special interest group that cannot be trusted, why should I trust anything from another special interest group - the SEIU?

 

[NO!bama08]

I don't doubt it's true. Those kind of disparities always have and always will exist. No amount of Socialist experimentation will change that. The system could be "tweaked" to help with thoses kinds of things. It DOES NOT need to be overhauled so that it's screwed up for the 90% of us who like what we have and feel secure with it.

Report: Family Insurance Doubles with Obamacare

The Obama White House immediately tried to discredit a new PriceWaterhouseCoopers study on the costs of the health care reform bill being voted on Tuesday by the Senate Finance Committee – and with obvious reason.

Newsmax obtained a copy of the devastating report. In its section entitled “Potential Impact of Health Reform on the Cost of Private Health Insurance Coverage,” the prestigious independent accounting firm warns of “new taxes on health sector entities that are likely to be passed through to consumers.”

It noted that the current cost of the average family’s coverage is about $12,300. But under the Obamacare bill set to be voted on, that would increase to approximately:

# $17,200 by the year 2013.

# $21,300 by the year 2016.

# $25,900 by the year 2019.

 

[EriktheRed]

Republicans Don't Like SEIU And ACORN, But There's More To The Story | TPMDC

Exerpt:

Republicans have successfully targeted ACORN this year, and have recently expanded the net to include Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for working with ACORN.

But a public documents search shows Republicans have received political donations from SEIU, as Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) had to acknowledge when calling for the census to sever ties with the massive union.

In addition to Kirk's $2,500 donation in 2003, SEIU has given a few thousand here and there to House Republicans, including Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).

Documents show the Republican Governors Association has taken more than $750,000 in donations from SEIU since 2004, including a $100,000 check on March 5, 2007.

Also taking SEIU cash? The GOP's host committee for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, to the tune of $50,000. And Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who scored $2,500 from the SEIU political action committee in October 2006 just before the GOP lost power in Congress.

 

[DiveCon]

Republicans Don't Like SEIU And ACORN, But There's More To The Story | TPMDC

Exerpt:

Republicans have successfully targeted ACORN this year, and have recently expanded the net to include Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for working with ACORN.

But a public documents search shows Republicans have received political donations from SEIU, as Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) had to acknowledge when calling for the census to sever ties with the massive union.

In addition to Kirk's $2,500 donation in 2003, SEIU has given a few thousand here and there to House Republicans, including Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).

Documents show the Republican Governors Association has taken more than $750,000 in donations from SEIU since 2004, including a $100,000 check on March 5, 2007.

Also taking SEIU cash? The GOP's host committee for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, to the tune of $50,000. And Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who scored $2,500 from the SEIU political action committee in October 2006 just before the GOP lost power in Congress.

which proves NOTHING

 

[California Girl]

Republicans Don't Like SEIU And ACORN, But There's More To The Story | TPMDC

Exerpt:

Republicans have successfully targeted ACORN this year, and have recently expanded the net to include Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for working with ACORN.

But a public documents search shows Republicans have received political donations from SEIU, as Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) had to acknowledge when calling for the census to sever ties with the massive union.

In addition to Kirk's $2,500 donation in 2003, SEIU has given a few thousand here and there to House Republicans, including Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).

Documents show the Republican Governors Association has taken more than $750,000 in donations from SEIU since 2004, including a $100,000 check on March 5, 2007.

Also taking SEIU cash? The GOP's host committee for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, to the tune of $50,000. And Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who scored $2,500 from the SEIU political action committee in October 2006 just before the GOP lost power in Congress.

So, the Republicans are dishonest.

The Democrats are dishonest.

Each are acting in accordance with their own best interests.

We elect them to act in our best interests.

Can someone please explain to me why we vote for any of them?

 

[editec]

Republicans Don't Like SEIU And ACORN, But There's More To The Story | TPMDC

Exerpt:

Republicans have successfully targeted ACORN this year, and have recently expanded the net to include Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for working with ACORN.

But a public documents search shows Republicans have received political donations from SEIU, as Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) had to acknowledge when calling for the census to sever ties with the massive union.

In addition to Kirk's $2,500 donation in 2003, SEIU has given a few thousand here and there to House Republicans, including Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).

Documents show the Republican Governors Association has taken more than $750,000 in donations from SEIU since 2004, including a $100,000 check on March 5, 2007.

Also taking SEIU cash? The GOP's host committee for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, to the tune of $50,000. And Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who scored $2,500 from the SEIU political action committee in October 2006 just before the GOP lost power in Congress.

So, the Republicans are dishonest.

The Democrats are dishonest.

Each are acting in accordance with their own best interests.

We elect them to act in our best interests.

Can someone please explain to me why we vote for any of them?

Because the Good cop/Bad cop game they play works on so many stupid STUPID people, that's why.

FWIW, it works on me, too so I'm ONE of those stupid STUPID people, too

 

[Chris]

Never believe anything linked to the SEIU.

The story is true.

It happens every day in America.

The healthcare lobbyists gave members of Congress $3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in the last decade, so they could continue to deny people healthcare.

Ok, let's ignore the 'story' for the moment - because you cannot prove it is true and I know who the SEIU are so I'm not gonna take it on face value because the SEIU have a big dog in this race.

So, let's deal with the other issue. As you say, healthcare lobbyists gave members of Congress $3.4b. So, why are you defending the Democrats? Why do you trust people who took money from special interest gtoups? Because those members of Congress were not all Republicans, quite a lot were Democrats..... and if the healthcare companies are a special interest group that cannot be trusted, why should I trust anything from another special interest group - the SEIU?

The story is true.

Do a little reading.

Oh....that's right, you don't read.

That's why you are so ignorant.

 

[Chris]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uRbYO_zBMw]YouTube - Stacie Ritter sets out to confront CIGNA's Ed Hanway[/ame]