Reply #8: More laws that do nothing to control their greed [View All]

[lame54]

In 1991 California passed the "Fair Claims Practice Act". It took the Insurance Industry less than a year to get around this very tough piece of legislation. I know this from personal experience, my son had just been diagnosed with Dermatomyositis and I used that act often the first year to get claims paid. It put a time limit (30 days) in which Insurance Companies had to pay claims. Well the second year into my son's illness they got around it by using a little tactic of their own called putting your case in "review". This was worse than not paying a claim, in effect it put his treatment on hold. Treatment needed to stay alive. We will never never be able to manage or health care cost and provide health care for all until we take the insurance company out of the game. It's a game of greed for them and life and death for us. It's time for us to stop playing this deadly game with the school yard bully. Blue Cross had no problem taking $360 a month from my paycheck for years (in the 80's that was a lot money and represented over a quarter of my monthly income) but when it came time for me to get what I paid for they welshed on their promises.

Here is a great book that might give you a little more information on HMO

http://home.earthlink.net/~suzannetolbert /

patty lame's wife