Palin’s stance is “downright evil” – Reuters provides Proof

anti national health care stance is 'down right evil'?

Here is proof that Palin’s anti national health care stance is ‘down right evil’. It inexplicable how Palin calls an attempt to prevent the following tragic circumstances from occuring again “downright evil”.

California’s Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims via Reuters.com

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ — More than one of every five requests for medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by a patient’s physician, are rejected by California’s largest private insurers, amounting to very real death panels in practice daily in the nation’s biggest state, according to data released today by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

CNA/NNOC researchers analyzed data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. From 2002 through June 30, 2009, the six largest insurers operating in California rejected 31.2 million claims for care – 21 percent of all claims.

Alarmingly some deaths were caused -and could have been prevented- when an insurance company (PacifiCare) refused to cover health costs but then recanted this position; however changing too late and resulting in patient deaths.

PacifiCare denied 40 percent of all California claims in the first six months of 2009. Cigna, which gained notoriety two years ago for denying a liver transplant to 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge, Calif. and then reversing itself, tragically too late to save her life, was still rejecting one-third of all claims for the first half of 2009.

PacifiCare, for example, denied a special procedure for treatment of bone cancer for Nick Colombo, a 17-year-old teen from Placentia, Calif. Again, after protests organized by Nick’s family and friends, CNA/NNOC, and netroots activists, PacifiCare reversed its decision. But like Nataline Sarkisyan, the delay resulted in critical time lost, and Nick ultimately died. “This was his last effort and the procedure had worked before with people in Nick’s situation,” said his older brother Ricky.

Thus death brought about by rejection and why do rejections occur?

Rejection of care is a very lucrative business for the insurance giants. The top 18 insurance giants racked up $15.9 billion in profits last year.

“The routine denial of care by private insurers is like the elephant in the room no one in the present national healthcare debate seems to want to talk about,” Burger said.”Nothing in any of the major bills advancing in the Senate or House or proposed by the administration would challenge this practice.”

“The United States remains the only country in the industrialized world where human lives are sacrificed for private profit, a national disgrace that seems on the verge of perpetuation,” she said.

The rest of the report is just as explosive. Read it here.

I would argue that Palin knew very little of what she spoke off when she made the “downright evil” statement.