I received an email from a friend of mine yesterday that demonstrated how high the stakes are for all Americans in this healthcare debate.
Dear friends,
Just wanted to share a shocking news I received yesterday. Since I lost my job last summer, [child's name] and I have been on individual health insurance from Anthem Blue Cross coverage. We have not had a single doctor’s appointment since we purchased this insurance, so the company is making 100% on our monthly premiums we pay.
Read the rest of her note below the fold.
Continued:
Two days ago I received an insulting letter from Blue Cross that started with: "We know that lowering health care costs are important to you – you can rely on our solid experience to secure the best prices possible for our members", and continued to let us know about new premium effective Sept. 1st that ended up being 40%!!! HIGHER than the current rate we are paying.
Raising our monthly premium to punish us for being healthy! And what audacity to do this in the middle of national debate about fixing our broken health care system where insurance companies and their CEOs financially rape those that are healthy enough to qualify for coverage, not insuring those that had an illness in the past, and employing divisions of people to look for the ways to denying coverage for cancer patients. I cannot imagine more perverted system. Maximizing profit at people’s health expanse, and in number of cases at the cost of people’s life.
I called Blue Cross and my health insurance broker, and gave them my piece of mind, and it wasn’t very pretty to say the least. I had sent a letter to local news outlets to see if they are interested in the story as I want to expose this as much as I can.
Any advise what else I can do?
Thanks,
Fuming in [Southern California city]
Can it be any clearer that Americans need some kind of public or non-profit option to keep these bastards honest? They literally have us over a barrel, and they are pouring money in to continue doing this kind of crap to our friends and neighbors, especially those unfortunate enough to be suffering in this Bush economy.
Someone tell me how medical costs went up 40% in the past year! This is legal robbery. And this gal is a hardworking, educated immigrant from Croatia married to a husband who is barely keeping his job (and must not be able to transfer over his coverage to his family).
Please pass this along to anyone you feel needs to hear this story and stop the Corporatecans and their fiends on the Democratic side. Thanks for listening.