Y2HH

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 06:49 PM) Can you elaborate on this incident? It must have been in the news, but I haven't found anything in quick google searches. I posted the only snippit I could find on it in a post above -- wasn't much detail.

And while Tex's statement could be taken as pure sarcasm, he has a valid point, and it illustrates why a company may want to sweep such things under the carpet, or ignore them completely while hoping for the best. But again, internal ignorance of things going wrong within a company/business/organization are not valid excuses. In this case, Blue Cross had about 144 million reasons why they'd think about "cheating the system" in order to avoid investigations, fines, etc. They did things properly, and look what it cost them. My point was every such company, in this system, doing business with the public, the public sector or otherwise, should have proper oversight in place to avoid such situations, and in the case they happen, do something about them to correct them in a swift proper manner.

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 04:23 PM) It sure is a messed up industry when doing business the right way results in $144 mil in fines. That was really just one person in one office? Amazing. A careless person. They were turned on by other employees, and the company then turned itself in, and the fine was the result. They could have probably easily swept it under the carpet to avoid it, but then the company would have been put at even greater risk if such a thing ever leaked out or exploded into a huge news story.

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 03:40 PM) Actually I think it is very rare to have the actions of one or two employees take down an organization of that size. I tried to find a news story about the fine. How long ago was it? How would you have felt if instead of a careless employee, a competing company planted someone and enticed the employee into reveiling the information? And instead of a $75 million dollar fine, it was large enough to close down the company? I'm not sure it was in the news -- we are a privately held company, so I'm not sure if the media latched onto it or not. It was about 10 years ago or so... And I stand corrected, it was over 144M$ in fines. This is all I could find on it, but it's not a full story, as I guess you have to be a member? http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-21091555.html

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 02:38 PM) I think it is sad when a couple employees' actions cause an entire organization to fold. That is bad news for a lot of people. Imagine if today you lost your job because someone in a remote office ripped off a customer. No fault of your own, but you are as much out of work as the guilty person(s). Well, that's the way it works in most industries. In my industry, under HIPAA rules, disclosures of confidential data leads to massive fines. For example, a careless employee in a branch office in the middle of a southern small town cost my company over 75million in fines. One person at one TINY location caused this out of carelessness or whatever other reason. We fixed the situation and turned ourselves in knowing the multi-multi million dollar fine that was going to come with doing so. Why? Because we do business the RIGHT WAY. Now imagine if we had 500 such employees. Or 1,000. Or, instead of doing business the right way, we just swept things like this under the rug hoping nobody would ever find out. The point is, the fines could add up fast. This is where company/employee responsibility comes in. Other employees are supposed to make sure this doesn't happen, so one person can't sink a ship, or two, or twenty. Oversight. Properly handling business. Even at remote locations which must be checked and audited for such breeches. We take it pretty seriously in my line of work. If Acorn had done the same, they wouldn't be where they are. Ignorance is not an excuse for poor business practices or ignoring laws, rules and regulations. And believe me, we are under far stricter laws and regulations than Acorn, as is everyone in the health insurance industry, yet we seem to avoid frequent occurrences of these SPI breeches.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:52 PM) Your "I'm smarter than everyone else" attitude is getting a little tired. Then take a nap.

The saddest part is you are all smarter than this, but apparently it's not hard to pull the wool over your eyes. Keep believing that ACORN is shutting down because of a vast right wing conspiracy. BEYOND ridiculous.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:40 PM) I don't know what you mean by wrong doing. Were homeless people just taking a paycheck without doing their job? Yes. Was the organization ever convicted of illegal activities despite a whole political scandal in the US attorneys office to try and push taking down ACORN? No. They were under a heavy microscope and never got taken down until a highly manipulated video, and in the investigation afterward, they said it was a highly manipulated video and no illegal activities were done. But some showed poor judgment. SO no. Ok, you're right...they were an innocent organization that never did anything wrong! I have some land to sell you, too...it's on top of an oil field. You should buy it sight unseen. When I see things like this, it leads me to believe you guys need to find some brains. Seriously. You make it hard to take anything you do seriously because of stupidity like this.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:36 PM) well, they weren't convicted of any wrongdoing. Their money was stripped before any investigations were done in the immediate aftermath. So, just so I'm clear here, rather than continuing to play the "I'm answering but not Tiger Woods game". Are you saying Acorn is innocent of all wrong doing and they were a clean organization? It's a two part yes or no question.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:34 PM) you did because it provided cover for a lot of the 55-60 dem. sen votes. If those were in, those 5 sens. wouldn't have voted for it, and it couldn't have passed. Political realities. Oh I understand the political realities -- I know they're part of the game. I still have a problem with it.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:25 PM) Y2HH, again, we are dealing with political realities. It's hard enough to take on the insurance industry. Now take on big pharm at the same time. As I've stated numerous times and it hasn't stuck. Early on the bill contained provider level cost controls. And republicans huffed and puffed about how it hurts doctors and would be the end of the world. At the end of the bill, it's THERES NO PROVIDER COST CONTROLS. ANd while the argument before was "oh great now you are going to ruin any advancement in drugs since no technician will go into pharmaceuticals to cure stuff because they won't make any money if you let generics take over earlier" and now it's "Oh now they get a sweet heart deal!" Who cares what the republicans huffed and puffed about -- you didn't need a SINGLE vote from them.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:28 PM) this is why i'm avoiding this thread. but i will just add this. O'Keefe was NOT dressed up like a pimp during the videos with employees. Should I really post the examples of these heavy edited tactics showing responses to questions that weren't asked? If they were truly innocent of wrong doing, they'd be fine. And that's all I have to say. I'm sure congress believes every fake video sent to them to the point that they actually hold votes on the subject. Oh, wait, they don't...

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:22 PM) Yeah they helped poor black people. Can't have that. Yes, that's all they were doing, that's why they got shut down. That's why Fox has been so successful shutting down the NAACP, and other black only organizations... Oh wait...they haven't...BECAUSE THOSE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AREN'T DOING TONS OF ILLEGAL s***. Now take your head out of the sand. All of you pro ACORN idiots, stop being ignorant now. Seriously. I don't mean to go personal, but ignoring the fact that your beloved organization was voted in a bi-partisan congress as doing illegal s*** yet you refuse to accept it is beyond ridiculous. Remove your heads from your blind asses, you obviously can't see.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:23 PM) Quite frankly, I think eventually it'll be a different Democratic leader who winds up allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, maybe even someone originating it in the Congress. The Republicans had zero interest in doing that in 2003 when it could have saved them a hundred billion or two on their bill, and I see zero reason to think that's changed. Since that won't be happening anytime soon, since Obama basically made it against the law to do so -- we won't have to worry about it for years and years now will we. By then I'm sure we will have forgotten all about this conversation. In the mean time, at least Obama made me some money since I'm heavily invested in Pfizer, Bristol Squibb and Merck.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:08 PM) The deal with the drug companies was that this reform bill and the Obama administration would not push drug re-importation or allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices in exchange for them supporting the bill and cutting their prices over 10 years by the equivalent of $85 billion. There's nothing in that deal that would stop a Congressperson from successfully pushing that in a bill or having Obama's 2012 opponent try to back him into supporting it. However, that would require a Republican who was willing to take on the Drug industry. So now a republican has to save the day because of a bad deal the democrats made all the while saying they were saving their people money? Again. Save the bulls*** for someone stupid enough to buy it.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:16 PM) There were some corruption issues at ACORN, but there are many of the same issues at a lot of non-profits across the political spectrum, I'm sad to say. ACORN did a lot of good for the communities they worked with over the years, and for those people it's a sad day to see the organization that they helped build and benefitted from was essentially destroyed by some homeless guys not doing their temporary jobs properly and a 25 year old pseudo-activist playing dress up who possessed a video camera and some knowledge of editing. And they did a lot of bad, too. Which is why they are where they are.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:12 PM) And as soon as any of them try to register non-white people to vote, Fox News will declare them equally corrupt and an enemy of the state. Oh please, just save it. That's not why they were shut down and you know it. The entire congress, democrat and republican basically voted these f***ers down as corrupt, save the bulls*** and accept it please. And stop blaming Fox news for exposing these f***ers. Blame ACORN for operating the way they did, had they not done the things they were doing, this wouldn't have happened no matter what Fox news did. You're smarter than this, so please, act like it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 12:32 PM) That's unfortunate. The Republican meme of vote rigging managed to stick along with that heavily-edited video tape with the "pimp". It's not unfortunate at all...they were a corrupt organization and I'm glad they're gone. There are plenty of other liberal organizations that aren't corrupted like Acorn was.

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 12:47 PM) I do not get too worked up over profit. Their are too many factors that determine profits. Perhaps the drug companies could be less efficient and pay their employees more to match profit percentages. What we should have is a level playing field and then allow companies to profit as they can. Wasn't part of the deal with the drug companies to ban some foreign drug imports or something to that effect? I'd have to look that up because there is a lot of misinformation out there about this, but if that is the case, that's not creating a level playing field, it's slanting it in the American drug companies favor.

If anyone said insurance companies don't profit, they're misinformed or lying. They do profit...they just don't profit that much. You know who has higher profits? Doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and the like...which will continue to have the same (or higher) profits than they have right now. And I see people spouting these percentages of administrative overhead when it comes to insurance companies, with no evidence to back these claims. From what company? I work for Blue Cross Blue Shield, and I assure you our administrative overhead is nowhere near 30%. That reeks of cherry picking inflated statistics from what is probably the worst run health insurer in the country and using it as a blanket fact applied to all. The bill does a hell of a job curtailing the huge 3% profits from health insurance companies... But does nothing to curtail the even higher profit margins from drug companies, hospitals, etc. In essence, nothing truly changed...we're just going to have raise your premiums even more now. Whether you pay for it or the government/taxpayers help, we're still getting paid. Doesn't sound like much was accomplished in terms of cost savings, which was the key point of this entire thing... Since I own quite a few drug companies (stocks), I just did a quick check of some of the money they make -- oh, and thanks to this bill, I'm banking on those drug companies now. Merck Revenue: 23,850,000,000 Cost of Revenue: 5,582,000,000 Minus R&D, Admin, and other -- 5,053,000,000 CLEAR profit. And yes, those are billions, with a B. Bristol-Myers Squibb Revenue: 18,808,000,000 Cost of Revenue: 5,140,000,000 Minus R&D, Admin and other -- 5,052,000,000 CLEAR profit. I work for Blue Cross Blue Shield. It would take us 7.5+ YEARS to clear that kind of profit. It's actually considerably longer than that, but I don't have exact numbers so I'm giving an ultra liberal estimation there. In reality, it'd probably take us longer than a decade to turn that. The best part is, part of this reform was made via back room deals with those drug companies -- so those profits you see above, they're about to get a whole lot bigger. Not that I'm complaining, it'll put my kids through college. But the point is, you watched the left hand, when the trick was being done with the right. One TINY area of health care was "fixed", while the larger parts of it were left alone, or actually HELPED. Good job.

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 02:28 PM) Not rolling my eyes at all. I think the focus on drugs and cures rather than wellness and prevention are the root of our health problems in this country. I believe that the difficulty in changing the mindset of the healthcare industry will be negligible compared to changing the mindset of the public overall. You can lead a horse to water... Sweden's population is more controllable, being smaller, it's easier to educate them...and its easier to lead a smaller group to water and convince them to drink it. That concept isn't going to work here the US...people don't care about their health until they're not healthy, even those that are way overweight. You can talk to them until you are blue in the face about living a healthier lifestyle...they're simply not interested. I bet a majority of the people on this forum aren't in good shape, with zero excuse as to why. I bet a majority don't eat very healthy diets, either.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 01:14 PM) I'm not talking about the profit margin, I'm talking about methodologies used by the insurance industry, and how they contribute to the cost problem overall. Point is still the same though, this bill seems too focused on just the insurance companies, and not even focusing on the right problems therein. That's what I've been saying all along. I will edit by saying it does do SOME good things in the insurance arena that I felt were necessary, but it then does some very negative things without fixing the underlying issues at all -- cost. The costs remain the same, but now taxpayers help foot the bill...only now we have 30,000,000 more people involved. Funny that all the health care and drug stocks are up. The financial sector seems to think, if anything, this HELPED them more than it hurt them. Edit again, I see some insurance companies are down now, but not much.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 10:43 AM) The heath care debate has been going on for a year now. I think 1 full year is enough time to read a bill but that's just me. The bill was changed 500 times in that year, it's not remotely the same as it was when it started. So if you read it a year ago, its likely that most of it's not what you read.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 20, 2010 -> 03:57 PM) That actually goes for everything and not just healthcare. Like I said in another thread, by far the most depressing thing resulting from this entire ordeal isn't going to be the passage or failure of whatever the final bill will be or what's in it, but how it's exposed so many Americans as being intellectually lazy. Most voters don't really think about anything in anything more than glittering generalities and the more you break it down and the louder you are for/against it, people will just swallow the Kool-aid based on their already-determined perceptions. If you try to explain anything they don't want to be bothered, they just run back to their favorite information source to find a slant they prefer. I'd say a vast majority of voters don't vote for issues or platform, they party vote. IMO, party line voters are as much a problem in this country as the paid off politicians.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 19, 2010 -> 04:12 PM) I lol'd. You're the only one...I don't think anyone else gets me. :/