Tag Archives: insurance

Speaking to Fox News Sunday today, Texas Gov. Rick Perry called Medicare and Social Security “a Ponzi scheme” and unconstitutional. “Do the things you’re supposed to do, like securing our border, like delivering the mail — preferably on time and on Saturdays — before you get involved in things that the Constitution doesn’t say one word about, like health care,” …

A coalition of insurance companies donated over $86M to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to fight the passage of health care reform. The Chamber is notoriously run by GOP-insiders. The spending exceeded the insurer group’s entire budget from a year earlier and accounted for 40 percent of the Chamber’s $214.6 million in 2009 spending. The expenditures reflect the insurers’ attempts …

In reference to the post several below this one, the Office Of Personnel Management has issued this statement: “Stories claiming that the federal government offers pet insurance to federal employees, and juxtaposing that benefit with the fact that the federal government cannot under current law provide health insurance benefits to federal employees’ domestic partners are grossly inaccurate. While Aetna is …

All my listservs are blowing up this afternoon with the news that while LGBT federal employees may not purchase health insurance for their partners (thanks to DOMA), they can buy health insurance for their pets. Members of the Federal Employees Health Benefits plan received the below ad today.HRC’s Joe Solmonese goes off via press release: “Current law puts federal workers’ …

Sharron Angle thinks insurance companies should be able to refuse coverage for those super-pesky diseases that cost insurers so much money!

Beginning today Google will cover the added tax charged to LGBT employees whose partners are covered by their insurance plan. “It’s a fairly cutting edge thing to do,” said Todd A. Solomon, a partner in the employee benefits department of McDermott Will & Emery, a law firm in Chicago, and author of “Domestic Partner Benefits: An Employer’s Guide.” Google is …

Yesterday the Office of Personnel Management announced that same-sex partners of federal employees can begin applying for long-term care insurance next month. President Obama signed a memo last June extending some benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers, including access to the government’s Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program. On Tuesday, OPM essentially broadened the definition of relatives eligible for …

Once again, ExxonMobil’s shareholders have voted overwhelmingly to exclude LGBT employees from its partner benefits program. The Dallas Voice reports: Only 22 percent of ExxonMobil shareholders voted in favor of adding the protections during today’s annual meeting at the Meyerson Symphony Center in downtown Dallas. Last year 40 percent of shareholders voted in favor of the proposal. About two dozen …

On Friday Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced the Equal Access to COBRA Act, which would allow same-sex partners access to COBRA benefits if their partner loses their job. The law would apply to companies that already offer health coverage to domestic partners and their children. Currently, more than half of Fortune 500 companies cover domestic partners under their health plans. …

“My attitude is ‘Go for it!'”

The reconciled health care reform bill posted by the House is stripped of previously included provisions addressing LGBT concerns, such as the taxation of employee partner benefits. The HRC is disappointed, but supports the bill. While we are saddened that the House has abandoned provisions that would make care more accessible and affordable to our community, we recognize that the …

[Below is a very short story I wrote for the blog five years ago. I was reminded of it tonight during a rerun of Keith Olbermann’s epic hour-long rant on health care reform. So here’s a rerun of my own.] Rite Aid Pharmacy, Grand Central Terminal There’s a woman in line ahead of me who has just handed over a …

Rep. Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann says that if the president’s health care reform bill passes, Americans should not pay their taxes. “But mark my words, the American people aren’t gonna take this lying down,” Bachmann later said. “We aren’t gonna play their game, we’re not gonna pay their taxes. They want us to pay for this? Because we don’t have …

Last year the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld a ruling that Assurant Health must pay their customer Jerome Mitchell a settlement of $10M for wrongly canceling his coverage because he’d become HIV-positive. An investigation into Assurant’s inner workings has revealed an extensive campaign to find any reason to cancel the insurance of others with HIV. Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell’s …

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced today that the final version of the health care reform bill that she is sending to the Senate will not include the public option. “We’re talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation,” Pelosi said, noting “with sadness” that the public insurance option won’t be part of legislation. “I’m quite …

Today a group of “major businesses” including health insurance companies is launching a nationwide ad campaign in opposition to the health care reform bill. The campaign will target moderate and conservative Democrats in their home markets after a few days on national cable outlets. Health insurance companies, excoriated by Obama over a recent spate of double-digit premium hikes, are helping …

It’s definitely not the bill we wanted, but this morning the Senate voted 60-39 to approve its version of health care reform. The Senate voted Thursday to reinvent the nation’s health care system, passing a bill to guarantee access to health insurance for tens of millions of Americans and to rein in health costs as proposed by President Obama. The …

Embiggen the image for a breakdown of the positive changes some claim will result from the pending health care reform bill. (Via – Andrew Sullivan)