When doctors and insurance companies conspire to wipe out 61% of your bill

In the never-ending saga that is my eyes, my retina specialist referred me to another specialist a few weeks ago, because of some peculiarities in my vision. I paid my usual $25 copay at the new specialist, and just got his bill the other day. Now, the total cost of the treatment, not taking account my insurance, was $855.00. But, below that amount, my insurance company CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield listed the "non-allowed amount" for that exam, in my case $525.


(I had to cut and paste the numbers to fit it all in a size you could read.)

Basically, the non-allowed amount is a portion of the doctor's charges that the insurance company is throwing out, and that the doctor agrees to throw out. So in my case, above, the insurance company got the doctor to accept $287 as payment for my exam instead of the full $855.

Anyone want to take a bet on whether my doctor is treating me at a loss?

Welcome to the bizarre world of your insurance. You pay all this money every year for the right to have your insurance company and the doctor collude to lower the cost of your treatment. Which of course begs the question: Why am I being charged a phony inflated amount for the treatment in the first place? Do people without insurance pay the full $855? Of course, people without insurance probably go blind in the United States, so the point is likely moot.

But it really is infuriating to see the absurdly high costs we pay for health care in this country, then to see an indication that the costs are simply phony anyway. Andrew Sullivan posted about this today, using another example a reader gave him, which motivated me to write about my recent bill. Read the rest of this post...

I head to Maine tomorrow to help on the No on 1 campaign... and it's Halloween

So it got me thinking... what would be a good political Halloween costume this year? Going as Glenn Beck comes to mind. Carry a Little Red Book, a kleenex (for the tears), a container of vapor rub (to make the tears), lithium, an Anita Dunn voodoo doll...

Thoughts for what topical Halloween costumes come to mind for this year? Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments. Oh, and if folks get any good Halloween pictures (don't have to be just political costumes), send them to us at this address, and if we get enough good ones, we'll post them: ablogphotos@gmail.com (As always, by sending us your photo you are swearing that you have rights to the photo and that you give us permission to print it for free :-) Read the rest of this post...

Gavin Newsom dropped out of CA Governor's race today

This is a surprise. Robert Cruickshank at Calitics has the email from Newsom and some of the reasons. According to the California political punditry, lack of money was the biggest issue. This development leaves Attorney General (and former Governor) Jerry Brown as the only Democrat in the race, for now anyway. Read the rest of this post...

Fast food labeling shows diet changes in NY

Maybe the fast food labeling initiative made a lot more sense than some previously suggested.

The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released preliminary data showing evidence that people bought food with fewer calories at nine of the 13 fast-food and coffee chains included in a study on the effects of menu-labeling laws that went into effect in 2008.

Researchers surveyed more than 10,000 customers at 275 locations in early 2007 and another 12,000 this year.

They found statistically significant decreases at four chains -- McDonald's, Au Bon Pain, KFC and Starbucks -- and said diners who saw and acted on calorie information bought food containing 106 fewer calories on average than those who did not notice the postings.

Read the rest of this post...

Moody's: Home prices and unemployment won't turn around until mid-2010

Moody's via Matisse Capital:

"...Moody's said it now expects a trough in home prices won't be reached until the middle of next year...Moody's said in addition to borrowers' financial pressure, unemployment is now projected to peak at over 10% in mid-2010 and remain in the high-single digits for two years after they peak."

We always knew that unemployment wasn't going to run around until much later than now. Read the rest of this post...

Obama administration again defends DOMA in court, says gays have no "fundamental right" to marriage benefits

Hope the champagne party at the White House was fun the other night. And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

From AP:

States that allow gay marriage can't force the federal government to provide benefits to those couples, the Obama administration argued Friday in court papers in a lawsuit by Massachusetts.

The Justice Department is at odds with Massachusetts — the first state to allow gay marriage — over a 1996 federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Massachusetts sued in July, saying that law is discriminatory and deprives gay couples in the state of some federal spousal benefits.

The Obama administration agrees the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is discriminatory and wants it repealed, but says it has an obligation to defend laws enacted by Congress while they are on the books and can be reasonably defended.

Except they don't. But they'd like you to believe they do.

Here is a former senior aide to President Clinton explaining how it actually works in the Oval Office when a president wants to oppose a law in court. And here are examples from Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II where the White House didn't defend laws it didn't agree with. So it's an outright lie for the administration to say it has an obligation to defend all laws enacted by Congress.

Not to mention, this White House has already refused to enforce laws it didn't like - on immigration and medical marijuana - so don't lecture us about how you had to side with the religious right because of your respect for the rule of law. We simply weren't important enough.

"There is, however, no fundamental right to marriage-based federal benefits," according to the 36-page filing.

Thanks, that helps. Read the rest of this post...

Jonathan Allen at the Politico makes fun of health reform legislation for having legal terms in it

THIS JUST IN!!! MUST CREDIT AMERICABLOG!!! THE HOUSE WELFARE REFORM LEGISLATION INCLUDES LEGAL WORDS AND LEGISLATIVE LANGUAGE!!!!

Jonathan Allen at the Politico (often referred to as the Republico) wrote a story today revealing for the first time that the House health care reform legislation includes legal phrases that non-lawyers might find difficult to understand.

Seriously:

And for those who cry “read the bill,” beware. There are plenty of paragraphs like this one:

“(a) Outpatient Hospitals – (1) In General – Section 1833(t)(3)(C)(iv) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395(t)(3)(C)(iv)) is amended – (A) in the first sentence – (i) by inserting “(which is subject to the productivity adjustment described in subclause (II) of such section)” after “1886(b)(3)(B)(iii); and (ii) by inserting “(but not below 0)” after “reduced”; and (B) in the second sentence, by inserting “and which is subject, beginning with 2010 to the productivity adjustment described in section 1886(b)(3)(B)(iii)(II)”.

The section deals with “incorporating productivity improvements into market basket updates that do not already incorporate such improvements,” if that helps.

I'd certainly hope there are plenty of paragraphs like that one, as that's how one writes legislation, you moron.

With all due respect, you'd have to be an idiot to quote a paragraph like that as proof that there's a problem with the health care bill. I got my law degree from Georgetown, and I worked in the Senate for five years, during which time I helped write legislation. Legislation is per se extremely legalistic. It has to be (duh). Or else you get it wrong and the entire country is screwed. That paragraph reads like any paragraph in any bill. It's not easy stuff. It never has been. There's a reason a law degree takes seven years of university after high school. It's actually hard stuff. And for a reporter to point out that paragraph as evidence of a problem with the bill - well, it only evidences a problem with the reporter. And it's frankly embarrassing, and rather FOX News-y to boot.

It is incredibly disingenuous to write something like this. It's intended to convince Politico's readers that the Democrats did something wrong with the legislation. Read the rest of this post...

FOX trying to make 'death panels' a story again

From Media Matters:

Linking to an Associated Press article about Medicare coverage for voluntary end-of-life counseling in the House health care bill, conservative media outlets such as Fox News and BigGovernment.com have featured misleading headlines to revive the widely debunked "death panel" smear. Fox News' Peter Johnson Jr. also stated during an interview with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), "So with regard to the death panel, nothing much has changed."

With regards to FOX News, nothing much has changed.

Read the rest of this post...

Jon Stewart rips FOX

Read the rest of this post...

Lieberman says he'll support GOP candidates in the future

But, via Barb at DailyKos, next year, Lieberman "probably will support some Republican candidates ..."

No surprise, really. Lieberman did campaign tirelessly for John McCain last year. Read the rest of this post...

Obama to end HIV travel ban today

This is great news, and the president deserves our thanks. This has been a good week, with the signing of the hate crimes bill and now lifting the HIV travel ban. Remember, however, all the pressure it took from the grassroots to get us to this point. It's been a not-so-good year in gay community/President Obama relations. Let's hope that the next three years we don't have to be equally vigilant in order to get the President's really big promises - ENDA, and the repeal of DADT and DOMA - fulfilled. Read the rest of this post...

The anti-gay bigots from Maine are advertising on our site

BUMP: Folks, just an FYI, the anti-gay bigots in the Catholic Church and the religious right in Maine are buying Google Ads on all the gay sites. The ads suggest that the gays are going to steal your children - not exactly what Jesus would do (then again, Jesus wouldn't aid and abet pedophiles, unlike far too many in the Catholic church leadership). We've been trying for a day now to pull them down, but it's not easy.

The good news, however, is that they're wasting a lot of money on people who clearly aren't going to support their hate and bigotry. I'm sure a lot of our readers are clicking on the ad just to see what the hatemongers are doing - I known I've clicked on their hateful ads when I've seen them on other sites, just to check up on the opposition - and every time someone clicks the ad, it costs the haters more money, money they could have spending convincing actual undecided voters. Yet at the same time I doubt it will convince a single reader to support discrimination. So rest assured, we're trying to get rid of the ads. Just wanted to let folks know since a number of readers had written in. Read the rest of this post...

Wall Street feeling very good about 2009 bonuses

So what Wall Street is saying is that Washington is all bark, no bite. They may be right about that too. Besides the high level of comfort amongst Wall Street types that their bonus will be fat again this year is the kicker at the end. Only on Wall Street would anyone suggest that making a six figure base salary is low. Yes, if that was the total income the argument makes sense due to the high cost of living in Manhattan. However, when that is half or a third of your total income (as is generally the case in the industry) it's totally ridiculous.

If the bankers were so worried about their "commission" being hit then maybe they ought to re-think the business model. Selling garbage and then paying the price because everyone (except Geithner) realized it was trash sounds more like a personal problem. There's no reason why the middle class ought to fund these arrogant freeloaders who can't turn a corporate profit.

According to the survey, 83 percent of Wall Street professionals expect to receive bonuses this year, and one-third expect to receive even bigger bonuses than they did in 2008.

"You can't change 200 years of history overnight," said John Benson, founder and CEO of eFinancialCareers.com. "...Changing the pay structure is going to be an iterative process, because there are always unintended consequences to every change."

Read the rest of this post...

"Consumer spending plunged in September"

So, the economic roller-coaster ride continues:

Consumer spending plunged in September by the largest amount in nine months, reflecting the end of the government's Cash for Clunkers auto sales program. Incomes, the fuel for future spending, were flat.

While the government reported that the overall economy grew in the July-September period, signaling the end of the worst recession in seven decades, the weakness in spending and incomes as the quarter ended underscores the fragility of the recovery

To my untrained economic eye, this seems to show how much government intervention helped keep the U.S. economy afloat.

Obama really did inherit a mess from George Bush. And, Bush's comrades in the GOP who helped created the mess have barely lifted a finger to help Obama fix it. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Yesterday was quite a day. We learned the economy grew in the last quarter, although the job situation is still bleak.

We saw the House health insurance reform bill and Speaker Pelosi discussed it on a call with bloggers. The biggest complaint from Republicans is that the bill is long, over 1900 pages. That's the best GOPers can throw at it. Perhaps if all the previous GOP presidents hadn't failed to act, and if GOPers in the Senate hadn't killed reform in 1994, the bill wouldn't be so long. But, the current system is a mess.

Today, the President is expected to finally lift the HIV travel ban.

On the election front, there are four days to get-out-the vote in the key races and referenda around the country. There are two gubernatorial races: New Jersey and Virginia. I'm really pulling for Jon Corzine to win again in New Jersey. The guy is a true progressive. I met him at Netroots Nation this past summer and he was just unyielding in his commitment to progressive values, including marriage equality.

Let's see where today leads us.... Read the rest of this post...

Even mild Wall Street change is getting hit in Congress

This gives a pretty good indication of how strong the Wall Street lobbyists are in Washington. It also reminds me yet another problem during the peak of the TARP days when Wall Street shoveled out millions to lobbyists to help block any changes. They claimed that the money was completely different than the bailout money and some fools may have even fallen for that nonsense. (OK, maybe just five year olds fell for that story.)

Reasons for being against the mild Wall Street changes are all over the board. One of the few good ideas that has been suggested during the debate has been by Sheila Bair at the FDIC but even there, Geithner has shot it down. I'd hate to see what would happen in Congress if there was actually some serious reform on the table. Read the rest of this post...

EU left and right all agree against Blair for President

Maybe ol' Tony will just have to stick to raking in millions a year from the bankers. For years he tried to talk up Europe though he never really made an effort to move the UK closer to the EU. Heaven forbid he bothered to try something risky. Well, something risky besides invading Iraq and going along with Bush. Now the center-right leaders of the EU are turning away and looking for someone who bothers to care about the EU. Even better, the center-left is just as, if not more, uninterested in Blair. The Guardian:

Sarkozy, the French president, and Merkel, the German chancellor, discussed the new EU president at a dinner at the Elysée palace on Wednesday. They are understood to have agreed that the post should be filled from the main centre-right EPP grouping, which brings together the parties currently ruling most EU countries.

The French made clear in Brussels last night that Blair was losing their support. Jean-David Levitte, Sarkozy's most senior foreign affairs adviser, said: "The UK is not in the eurozone, nor in the Schengen [free travel area in the EU] and it has a number of opt outs. These are not advantageous in this search for a candidate."

Read the rest of this post...