As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."
Thursday, October 08, 2009
The (Not So) Symbolic Middle Finger From The Insurance Industry
Here's a nice detail from an LA Times story about Hilda Sarkysian:
Surrounded by supporters, Hilda Sarkisyan marched into Cigna Corp.’s Philadelphia headquarters on a chilly fall day, 10 months after the company refused to pay for a liver transplant for her daughter.
"You guys killed my daughter," the diminutive San Fernando Valley real estate agent declared at the lobby security desk. "I want an apology."
What she got was something quite different.
Cigna employees, looking down into the atrium lobby from a balcony above, began heckling her, she said, with one of them giving her "the finger."
There's video of this confrontation. Check it around 3:40:
Sadly, this exchange is the only ledge on which the Sarkysians can hang a wrongful death lawsuit on CIGNA. A judge threw out the case on the basis of a 1987 ruling from the Supreme Court as well as ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act), which bars individuals from holding insurers of employer-paid health care plans responsible for their coverage decisions, but they can claim that the finger incident caused them "emotional distress." Even Hilda Sarkysian calls this absurd: "They kill a beautiful 17-year-old girl, and I get to go after them for a finger? That's sick."
But of course, the insurance industry sticks their proverbial middle finger up at the country every day, with plans that cost more every year for the same coverage, companies that rescind policies when patients want to use them, and byzantine rules that they use to get out of providing care. The only surprise about this gesture is that it's not one of the health insurer's corporate logos.
Yesterday, 6 protesters were arrested outside UnitedHealth Group headquarters in Minneapolis for blocking the entrance and refusing to leave during a demonstration. Here's some video of the arrests:
Dawn Smith, the brain tumor victim who's struggles to get CIGNA to cover her treatments have become national news, is headed to the headquarters of CIGNA CEO Ed Hanway in Philadelphia, to get some answers on why she was denied coverage. She is live-blogging the trip and has some video on her site as well.
Health Care For America Now has transformed the main homepages of UnitedHealth, CIGNA and WellPoint into virtual crime scenes, and they are mobilizing people to visit the headquarters of all these corporate bad actors with yellow police tape and declare them actual crime scenes. There are dozens of events in over 60 cities scheduled.
It is true that these events, scattered throughout the country, have been organized by health care advocacy groups. Of course, throughout the month of August, corporate front groups organized around town hall meetings, busing in folks from out of town and preparing them with talking points and rules to disrupt the events. Yet, in the eyes of the traditional media, only one of these two actions are seen as authentic:
For several months, HCAN—a national coalition of religious groups, community organizations, unions, senior citizen groups, health care professionals, and consumer advocates—has been organizing polite demonstrations, rallies, and public forums, trying to put faces on an industry that has spent multiple millions of dollars lobbying against reform, while angry protests at town meetings swelled August’s big national story. On Sept. 22, HCAN sponsored about 150 demonstrations at various insurance company headquarters around the country. The Los Angeles Times did not bother to report about the several hundred demonstrators at WellPoint’s California subsidiary office, located a few blocks from the newspaper’s office. Nor did The Philadelphia Inquirer note those who descended that day on CIGNA, nor The New York Times those outside UnitedHealth in midtown Manhattan.
The HCAN rallies did attract print and broadcast coverage in dozens of cities, but most reporters treated them as isolated local events rather than components of a nationally coordinated protest (its slogan, “Big Insurance: Sick of It”) and a burgeoning grassroots movement [...]
With Congress debating extensive health care reform, and companies like CIGNA, WellPoint, and UnitedHealth major protagonists, the organizers supposed that their protests would dramatize the exorbitant profits of the insurance industry and the imposing compensation they pay top executives (UnitedHealth’s Hemsley made $57,000 per day last year) while millions of Americans go without insurance or bankrupt themselves with medical bills.
HCAN was mistaken.
“At a certain point,” Indianapolis Star senior editor Jenny Green told us, the demonstrators are “not adding to the debate. They’re just one side saying exactly what you’d expect them to say.”
Her colleague, Greg Weaver, the Star’s deputy public service editor for business, maintained that the raucous town meetings of August, dominated by conservative activists shouting down Democratic Congressmembers, were newsworthy because they “are more of a public forum where you have many sides of the debate, whereas at the [HCAN] protest [at WellPoint CEO Bray’s house] you have only one side of the debate.”
“I did not think the protest at [Cigna CEO] Hanway’s house was news,” Philadelphia Inquirer business reporter Jane Von Bergen told us. “It was a staged event. It wasn’t real news. I avoid them. I can’t stand them. They don’t add anything. They don’t teach anything. If they go to his house, we don’t learn anything more about the health care debate.” The protest was “too manufactured,” said Von Bergen. “Just a bunch of people going blah-blah-blah.”
By contrast, said Von Bergen, who covered the rowdy town meeting in August where right-wing activists confronted Sen. Arlen Specter, the news value of that event was “readily apparent.” “It involved public figures”—members of Congress. So political reporters picked up the story.
Isn’t Hanway a public figure? we asked. He’s well known in the business community, she said, but not among the general public—a condition that HCAN is trying to change, but can’t do if the media won’t cover their events.
This is a revealing set of quotes, showing the true orientation of corporate-run media. They are willing to blind themselves to the corporate front groups who organize town hall meetings, but call demonstrations of insurance companies "staged events." This is not the work of a neutral arbiter in the debate; it looks more like one class is being protected while the other is being savaged.
I don't know what the value of street protests are in the digital age. But I certainly know they have little value if they go unreported. Apparently such protests can get coverage, but only if they feature people with tea bags attached to their hats and guns in their side holsters.
In a post at Brave New Films' blog about closing in on the insurance industry, I mentioned the case of Dawn Smith, a MoveOn member and CIGNA who suffers from a treatable brain tumor. She spent two years being denied treatment for her tumor, and has seen her premium costs rise consistently since being diagnosed, and then, CIGNA raised her medication a whopping 10,000%. Dawn wrote a letter to CIGNA's Chief Medical Officer asking how they could do this:
Dr. Kang:
As you probably know, your company has denied me needed care for two years while I suffer from a debilitating but treatable brain tumor. I pay my $753.47 premiums. I follow the proper procedures. But CIGNA refuses to give me the care I need.
Instead, you keep increasing my prices. First my premiums rose by hundreds of dollars, and now my prescription costs are going up by more than 10,000%.
What makes you think you can treat sick people this way? When will you stop doing this to me and the thousands of people like me who are suffering? And if you solve this latest problem, how do I know you won't do this to me again next week--that you're actually changing your ways and not just trying to make your PR problem disappear?
Please answer these questions. I need to know, for the sake of my health and my life. Many others have signed this letter too, to support me and make sure I get answers.
Respectfully, Dawn Smith
MoveOn asked people to join Dawn in signing the letter, and over 100,000 did.
In the comments to the post asking people to co-sign Dawn Smith's letter, a representative from CIGNA responded in the comments:
CIGNA has spoken with Ms. Smith and successfully resolved the issue pertaining to this matter. We originally filled the prescription as prescribed by Ms. Smith’s doctor.
CIGNA learned through a third party political organization that Ms. Smith’s prescription mistakenly did not specify “brand name needed”. We have been in contact with both Ms. Smith and her physician and have corrected the inaccuracy. Customer service and satisfaction is important to us, we remain committed to working with our customers and physicians to ensure they receive the highest level of service.
Without that third party political organization - MoveOn - raising the profile of Dawn's case, there is probably no chance CIGNA would have responded so swiftly. But there's more to do. CIGNA may have agreed to lower the drug costs, and allowed various tests to go forward, but she is not giving up the fight. She wants answers about why she was denied treatment for two years, and why she and so many others have to suffer because CIGNA wants to maximize their profits. Dawn talked about her story in this video, and how it's not unique, but sadly the norm for a rapacious insurance industry that happily takes premium cash but resists giving it out in health care costs.
You can help Dawn by adding your name to a statement of support for her that will be delivered to CIGNA CEO Edward Hanway.
Fighting the insurance industry is a game of inches, but a collection of voices can make a difference. With some help from Congress, we can move toward a system of health care that doesn't involve ganging up on the insurance industry to force them to do the right thing.
Lots of groups are taking action against the insurance industry and their attempts to get a forced market for themselves and increase their profits at the expense of their customers.
Health Care For America Now has a new ad spotlighting Stephen Helmsley, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, and his $57,000-an-hour lifestyle, contrasted against the thousands of families who have experienced a medical bankruptcy:
In connection with that, SEIU is encouraging supporters to take out Craigslist ads seeking to rent a room in an insurance company CEO mansion. They have the Craigslist sites for Philadelphia (CIGNA's Edward Hamway), Minneapolis (UnitedHealth's Stephen Helmsley) and Indianapolis (WellPoint's Angela Braly), and sample "room for rent" ads to work from. A sample:
Bankrupt Mother of Two, Seeking Room @ Insurance CEO Mansion
I'’m seeking a room to rent in Cigna CEO Ed Hanway’s $13.6 million dollar mansion. (We'’ll take a room in one of his three beach homes, too.) My family would be very quiet and courteous housemates, and given the size of Ed's mansion, he won't even hear us! I'll be bringing along my two twin girls, both of whom were diagnosed with cancer at the age of four. CIGNA is refusing to pay for the human growth hormone they need to grow properly - and the out-of-pocket expenses for this treatment are…
What makes you think you can treat sick people this way? When will you stop doing this to me and the thousands of people like me who are suffering? And if you solve this latest problem, how do I know you won't do this to me again next week--that you're actually changing your ways and not just trying to make your PR problem disappear?
Please answer these questions. I need to know, for the sake of my health and my life. Many others have signed this letter too, to support me and make sure I get answers.
CIGNA Denies Cancer Patient Care, CEO Makes $120 Million
(I am a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their Sick For Profit campaign. Visit us on Facebook.)
Today Brave New Films released their second installment in the Sick For Profit series, taking a look at the corrupt practices of CIGNA, denying care to their customers while their lead executives rake in millions and lead lavish lifestyles.
Meet Jo Joshua Godfrey. She had cancer without knowing for over a year.
"I would go to CIGNA and they would tell me I had bronchitis and give me medicine and send me home. No matter what medicine they gave me I wouldn't get better. Then the CIGNA Director called me up and she told me that there was nothing wrong with me at all. I called the doctor, and I came with my film and my CAT scan and he just put it in, it took exactly thirty seconds. He told me, 'You have cancer,' and he said the reason CIGNA did not want to give you your records is they've known right way back for years that you have cancer and they're not going to treat you."
CIGNA took in $19.1 billion dollars in revenue last year, with a $292 million dollar income. That doesn't include the salaries given to people like CEO Ed Hanway. He made a cool $12 million last year, and over the past five years he took in $120 million. Hanway has $28 million in unexcercised stock options. The company corporate jets, also not seen in profit statements, cost $68 million. This money is gained, as former communications director Wendell Potter says in this video, through denying claims and dumping the sick, enhancing the value of the company for Wall Street investors. The effect on people's lives, meanwhile, is tragic. Nataline Sarkysian, featured in the Americans United For Change advertisement, lost her life after CIGNA repeated denied her a liver transplant, despite the family having full coverage.
Meet Stephen Coddington, the wife of Marian, a stroke victim:
The case manager at the nursing home called me in and was really upset, and she said, "CIGNA is wanting to discontinue therapy with her. The doctors called and appeals were denied." It has been a day-in and day-out fight. Every talk that I've had with them, it's been, how can we wiggle off this hook.
This is the human cost for an insurance company's existence, for the record profits and supreme lifestyle of their executives. Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now they're sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo. Why? Because the status quo pays.
CIGNA is not a special case in the insurance industry. It's perfectly normal and expected for a corporation to maximize profits. The difference with insurance is that the profit comes at the expense of your health care, and frankly, all the regulations in the world won't substantively change that. The best way to fight back is through exposure, a juxtaposition of the human luxury paid for by human misery.
So help us shine this spotlight. CIGNA's advertising tagline is 'A Business of Caring.' We think they ought to come up with something more appropriate for their actual practices. If you come up with one, post it on our Facebook page. Here are some examples. We'll send the best over to CIGNA. In addition, Jo Joshua Godfrey will join SEIU Healthcare 775NW outside the CIGNA corporate offices in Seattle, Washington today as they demand quality and affordable health care for every American as a fundamental right and not a privilege. If you're near 600 4th Ave in Seattle around 12:30 PT today, head down and show your support.
And send this video to your friends. Everyone needs to know what's at stake in health care reform. This kind of denial of coverage can happen to anyone under the current system.
One of the most despicable moments in the past few years came when CIGNA denied one of their customers, 17 year-old Nataline Sarkysian, a liver transplant. Bowing to public pressure after several days, CIGNA reversed itself and approved the transplant - but not before Sarkysian died. It was a perfect example of how insurance company CEOs get rich off of denying care. Americans United For Change remembered this sorry episode in a new political ad airing in Washington.
"This year Cigna CEO Ed Hanway will retire with a $73 million golden parachute. Seventy three million dollars. That's 292 liver transplants. Nataline only needed one. If insurance companies win, we lose."
Insurance companies are winning in some of the latest iterations of the health care bill in Washington, closing in on getting an individual mandate for everyone in the country to buy insurance, while maintaining a monopoly on the under-65 market by scuttling the public option, which would compete with private insurers and offer a not-for-profit alternative. They would get millions of new customers while potentially passing increased costs on to their customers. Nevertheless, they are still bellyaching about the meager changes to their bottom lines that would be more than offset by a forced market:
The insurers “would prefer to have absolutely no public plan on the table,” said Ana Gupte, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. Still, Ms. Gupte said, the insurers should benefit from the expansion in coverage — especially under Mr. Baucus’s proposed rules limiting the premiums that insurers would be able to charge from one person to the next. Under his proposal, premiums could vary by 7.5 times from the least expensive policy for the same benefits to the most expensive policy, based on age and other factors like use of tobacco.
Insurers also say they are worried about many of the new fees and taxes being proposed, including Mr. Baucus’s idea of charging the industry $6 billion a year in fees, in addition to taxing the most generous policies.
The industry also points to proposed cuts in payments to private insurers that now cover the elderly under Medicare — cuts that could amount to more than $100 billion over 10 years. “It’s a major issue,” said Ms. Ignagni, adding that health plans might not be able to continue to operate in some areas if the Medicare payments were cut too much.
There are still plenty of ways to ensure quality and affordable coverage for everyone under this plan. Insurance companies could be treated like regulated public utilities. They could have competition with a public insurance option that would force them to lower prices and improve quality. They could see an end to their corporate welfare in the form of Medicare Advantage payments, where they get free money from the government to run Medicare plans without any significant increase in quality. Any number of things could occur that would still allow insurers to skim off the top of a trillion-dollar industry and make very good livings.
But they want it all. And they traditionally have gotten there through denial of care, necessitated by a relentless drive for profit. The Sarkysian family knows this pretty well.
Insurance Companies: Profit Through Creating Tragedy
Health care reform in California is in stall mode right now, and with each passing day the price tag for gathering signatures rises. But between the twin fundraising efforts of the Speaker and the Governor, as long as they cancel travel for a month they should be fine.
What's working against the proponents of health care reform, in my view, is the continuing tragedy of Nataline Sarkysian. By November 2008 this will be out of the headlines, but within weeks the State Senate will be debating the merits of a reform measure that keeps the insurance companies in business to do this:
A Friday funeral was set for the Northridge teenager who died last week after her insurer refused to pay for a liver transplant and then reconsidered. Meanwhile, the girl's health plan stood by its initial decision Monday.
Philadelphia-based Cigna HealthCare has a record of approving coverage for more than 90% of all transplants requested by its members, as well as more than 90% of the liver transplants, company President David Cordani said in a memo addressed to employees and distributed to members of the media.
This is definitely a time to be citing statistics.
CIGNA clearly makes decisions based on corporate profit and lawsuit threats. They decide what treatments are "experimental" based on flowcharts and spreadsheets, not by looking into their customer's eyes. And their complete lack of empathy proves that they're willing to let this continue.
Just the other day, a state appeals court ruled that insurers cannot play the game of canceling coverage because of faulty applications only when the patient actually needs to use their health care.
California health insurers have a duty to check the accuracy of applications for coverage before issuing policies -- and should not wait until patients run up big medical bills, a state appeals court ruled Monday.
The court also said insurers could not cancel a medical policy unless they showed that the policyholder willfully misrepresented his health or that the company had investigated the application before it issued coverage [...]
The decision came in a closely watched case involving Steve Hailey, an Orange County small-business owner whose coverage was canceled by Blue Shield of California after he had a disabling car accident. The ruling in favor of Hailey sends the case back to the lower court for trial and requires Blue Shield to pay Hailey's appellate costs.
The types of tricks of the trade employed by CIGNA and Blue Shield are a nationwide trend. Legislation and lawsuits have yet to stop them. They'll claim that they can't do business without this kind of chicanery. At some point, government must grant their request.
I am a film and video editor, stand-up comedian, and blogger. My editor resume is here. A sample of my stand-up is here. The blog is what you're reading right now. Wasn't that easy?
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