Cuomo announces AIG to stop millions in payments to former executives

Halting payments is the least AIG can do considering the life line they received. There is no reason to continue paying out millions to failures for failing. Why Wall Street is still on target to dish out $70 BILLION in 2008 bonus money when they need taxpayers to keep them afloat is another mystery and I sure hope that Congress decides to locate a spine and take action. Maybe Cuomo can come down to Washington and show everyone what a spine looks like.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says American International Group, which is being supported by a federal bailout, has agreed to freeze millions of dollars in compensation and bonuses for former executives.

In a letter to Wednesday to AIG's new chairman, Edward Liddy, Cuomo writes that based on his office's review of company documents, the insurance and finance giant has agreed to stop any payments under former chief executive Martin Sullivan's $19 million pay package.

Also, AIG confirmed that no payments will be made from the $600 million compensation and bonus pools of the company's Financial Products subsidiary, including $162 million in AIG shares awarded through options to the subsidiary's six top executives. The unit was the main source of the troubled insurer's financial problems.

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McCain: Palin is more qualified than Lieberman

Atrios figured out why Lieberman has a sad face. He got dissed by McCain, big time, as they say, when McCain said of Palin:

“I think she is the most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president.”

That means more qualified than Joe Lieberman. Ouch, Joe. That has got to hurt. Read the rest of this post...

Republicans Disgusted By RNC Spending On Palin

Yes, while you were fretting over your 401k, Sarah Palin was out buying $150,000 worth of clothes at Neiman Marcus and Saks. Gosh, she's so much like you and me, you betcha.

From The Atlantic's Ambinder:

There is already an attempt to blame the media -- as in, the liberal media would have looked askance at Palin if she wasn't clad in Neiman Marcus, but this won't wash. Republicans, RNC donors and at least one RNC staff member have e-mailed me tonight to share their utter (and not-for-attribution) disgust at the expenditures.

This sort of spending is without precedent -- the closest approximation for any campaign I've ever covered is make-up expenses for television interviews and commercial shoots....

[T]he heat for this story will come from Republicans who cannot understand how their party would do something this stupid ... particularly (and, it must be said, viewed etroactively) during the collapse of the financial system and the probable beginning of a recession.

More from Politico:

The Republican National Committee’s $150,000 investment in Sarah Palin’s wardrobe has prompted some teeth gnashing among the party’s big donors about its political sensibility and a feisty debate among campaign finance specialists about its legality.

“As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain’s general campaign, I’d like my money back – he can still have my vote,” complained one irate donor on Tuesday.

“I’m not one who says a candidate shouldn’t wear fine clothes,” he added. “I’d just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party’s or the campaign’s, which is really our money as contributors.”...

"$150K is big money,” [a big Republican donor] added. “It kind of makes it worth running. Even if you lose, you’ve got a whole new closet.”

Read the rest of this post...

GOP pulls ad money from crazy Bachmann and anti-gay Musgrave races

Don't let the flag hit you two on the way out.

Two of the nastiest Republicans in the House, now in serious trouble. Hu-freaking-rray. Here's the latest on Bachmann, and here's Musgrave.

A lot of folks have already raised nearly a million for Bachmann's opponent, after she accused the entire United States Congress of being un-American and called for a witchhunt, so we're focusing our energies on Musgrave's opponent, Betsy Markey. Markey is halfway towards our goal of raising her $15,000 - you can give to her via this link. And she's running against crazy Marilyn Musgrave, the woman who introduced the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment (the one that ads a gay marriage ban to the US Constitution) in the House.

Musgrave is the religious right's number one puppet in the House. Musgrave thinks that banning gays in the US Constitution is the number one issue America faces today. Uh huh. I don't recall my relationships having a role in Iraq or the crash of the stock market. Here's what Musgrave told the Family Research Council's "Values Voters Summit" (you can watch the video via that link too):

when I was in the last weeks of my last campaign, you know what I was thinking? Where’s our side? What are they doing? And I believe that when you’re in a cultural war like this, you have to respond with equal and hopefully greater force if you want to win this battle. But this battle is the most important issue that we face today, and what an honor it has been to serve in the United States Congress and carry the Marriage Amendment.

Your donation is quite literally a slap at James Dobson, Jerry Falwell (it's never too late), Pat Robertson, and all of Marilyn Musgrave's other creepy friends. Click the donation box and give to Betsy, please, and let's finish Musgrave off once and for all. Read the rest of this post...

Chuck Todd: There's a "tenseness" between McCain and Palin

Watch this. Todd is a huge observer of American politics, and hugely respected. His observations carry a lot of weight. Huff Post has more, and here's the vid:

"There was a tenseness," Todd told MSNBC's Chris Matthews. "I couldn't see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. I felt as if we grabbed two people and said 'here, sit next to each other, we are going to conduct an interview.' They are not comfortable with each other yet."

Read the rest of this post...

Blithering Idiot Watch

"A vice president has a really great job because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're like the team member, the teammate to that president, but also they're in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better." - Sarah Palin, yesterday

At least we can be thankful she didn't add "dude."

Now watch the video, below, of McCain's press person (who looks oddly like Cindy, and Vicky Iseman, and Lady Lynn de Redneck, and even a bit like Carly Fiorina) trying to defend Sarah Palin's inane comments about being in charge of the Senate. That is not the vice president's job, as Chris Matthews so eloquently explains. Note how McCain's spokeswoman tries to explain Palin's ineptitude by saying that Palin was trying to give an explanation for a child. Huh? She was talking to a reporter, asking questions for the voters. Now we're to believe that Palin's baby talk in all these interviews iis because she thinks, what, that babies vote? That they watch NBC Nightly News?

Oh, and watch Obama spokesman Bill Burton just sitting there quitely in the background, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. The video also contains Palin's inept answer I quote above.

Read the rest of this post...

Are McCain and Palin at each other's throats?

From Josh Marshall:

MSNBC just ran what we can only call an extraordinary interview with NBC News' Chuck Todd and Brian Williams. They were discussing the interview NBC just did and will soon broadcast of John McCain and Sarah Palin. We'll have the video shortly but what really stood out was the candidness of Todd's discussion of his sense that the wheels may be coming off the campaign and his willingness to discuss what he saw as the tension between the two candidates speculate that McCain may be starting to blame Palin for his campaign tanking.

This is the clip Todd is talking about. Not to mention, I'm glad to see Tina Fey is back. Sarah Palin can't string a normal English sentence together when she does a real interview.

Read the rest of this post...

New flawed AP poll claims McCain and Obama are tied. Will AP's pollster take Nate Silver's challenge?

The Associated Press has released a poll that shows a much closer race than any other poll out ther. Now, Liz "I know what kind of donuts John McCain really likes" Sidoti must have been gleeful that she was chosen to write John McCain's "comeback" piece. (The infamous AP/McCain donut video is below.)

But, the poll doesn't make sense on many levels. Here's one example: 45% of this poll's respondents are evangelicals or born-again Christians (this is on page 20 of the poll's crosstabs (it's a pdf):



The problem? In 2004, evangelicals/born-again Christians made up 23% of voters. But that same group makes up 44% of likely voters in AP's poll released today. That's almost double the number - it's totally implausible.

In 2000 and 2004, there was a very aggressive push for the evangelical vote. In 2000, when the question was asked "Do you consider yourself part of the conservative Christian political movement," 14% of voters said "yes" in exit polls. In 2004, when the question was changed to "Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian?" - the very category AP uses in its current poll - 23% of voters said yes in exit polls.

Did you get that? The percentage of evangelicals/born-agains voting in 2004 was 23%. The percentage of evangelicals/born-agains that AP included in their likely voters scenario is 44%. That's almost twice as many. Consider that 79% of evangelicals voted Republican in the 2004 presidential elections, and we can assume that anyone calling themselves "born-again" might be more prone to voter Republican. This means AP disproportionately skewed its polling towards the GOP base. So it's no surprise that the AP poll shows McCain doing better than in other polls.

With such an outlier, one wonders why the brain trust at AP decided to move ahead releasing this poll. But, the AP brain trust loves McCain. It's not just Sidoti. Remember, AP's Washington bureau chief almost went to work for McCain. He's in that donut video, too.

As Nate Silver so clearly explains, the likely voter models being used by some pollsters, including AP's partner, GfK, aren't making sense. In fact, Nate has issued a challenge to the pollsters who have a wide gap in their models:

I would like to issue a challenge to those pollsters like Franklin & Marshall and GfK which in spite of all the facts above, are showing a substantial shift toward the Republicans when they apply their likely voter models. E-mail me -- my contact information is at the top of the page -- and tell me why you think what you're doing is good science.

I would like to issue a challenge to the Associated Press, too: Put aside your friendship with John McCain, please. At least for the next two weeks, be the objective new source you used to be.

Read the rest of this post...

Palin personal shopper = McCain robocaller = Sen. Norm Coleman's very generous landlord

What a tangled web those Republicans weave. And, this guy, Jeff Larson, is right in the middle of all of it. The Atlantic reports Larson was Palin's "personal shopper" -- but, there's more to Larson than his fashion sense:

Does the name Jeff Larson sound familiar? It should. Larson is the Karl Rove protégé who’s a principal in the robocalling firm of FLS Connect (the “FLS” stands for Tony Feather, Jeff Larson, and Tom Syndhorst, all veteran Republican political operatives). Larson’s firm is the same one that launched the scurrilous robocalls against John McCain in 2000, and that McCain has now hired to make robocalls connecting Barack Obama to Bill Ayers. He’s also well known in Minnesota for leasing his basement apartment at a steeply discounted rate to embattled Republican Senator Norm Coleman. Evidently, Larson also has quite the eye for women’s fashion. Even hateful liberals would have to admit that Palin dresses awfully nicely.

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Roubini: Recession to last for two years and more surprises to come

Nouriel Roubini was correct about the Wall Street problems well before they came tumbling down. Nothing is carved in stone but considering his previous predictions related to this economic cycle, I'm listening.

The US economy is entering a two-year recession that will be longer and deeper than previously feared, said Nouriel Roubini, a well-known economist and professor at New York University.

"I believe we're going to have two years of negative economic growth," Roubini said on CNBC. "The last two recessions lasted only eight months each ... This time around this is going to be three times as long, three times as deep. This is going to be the worst recession the US has experienced since the 1980s."

A slowdown in global economic growth combined with continued problems in credit markets and housing will haunt the economy, Roubini said.

In addition, he sees hundreds of hedge funds getting wiped out, combining with earnings to provide another weight on stocks.

"I believe that the worst is still ahead of us. I think that the next few weeks and months are going to be negative surprises on the economy," he said. "I think that overall the earnings are going to surprise to the downside."

An expected short recession will be replaced by a reality of a longer and more drawn-out slowdown, Roubini said.

Read the rest of this post...

Palin is dominating news today and that's not good for the GOP

There are 13 days left til November 4th. John McCain is flailing. He's dropping in the polls. The McCain/Palin campaign needs all the good news and message control it can get. But what is the media talking about today? Sarah Palin. Remember when the GOP thought that was a good thing? Not so much anymore.

There are several big Palin-related stories garnering enormous attention. None of them are good for the GOP ticket. All of them throw the McCain/Palin campaign off its message (not that anyone really understands what the GOP message is -- besides the unending negative attacks on Obama.)

But, let's review the political chatter:

First, we're all seeing the video of Palin not knowing what the vice president does. She was stumped by a third grader:



Second, there are the $150,000 worth of clothes paid for by the RNC. That story is garnering enormous coverage on-line and on TV. It's one of those stories that "everyone" is talking about and keeps giving (and will keep giving, I suspect).

Third, Palin's interview with Dobson.

Finally, the NBC/WSJ poll showing Palin is a bigger drag on McCain than Bush. I thought the McCain/Bush association would hurt Bush more than anything. In fact, it's the McCain/Palin association that's most damaging. Ironic that the McCain/Palin made such a big deal about associations and it's the association with his own v.p. that's the most damaging:



John McCain picked Palin for purely political reasons and to shake up the race. Be careful what you ask for, John McCain. Read the rest of this post...

Palin: McCain favors government forcing rape victims to carry their rapist's baby to term

Is she a blithering idiot, a liar, or informing us that now McCain has ditched his earlier positions on abortion (and gays)? You decide. From The Atlantic's Ambinder:

Dr. James Dobson today asked Gov. Sarah Palin about her private conversations with Sen. McCain about the Republican platform's planks on life and marriage.

"In your private conversations with Senator McCain is it your impression that he also strongly supports those views? I know that he did not oppose that platform when it was written. Do you think he will implement it?"

Good question. A lot of social conservatives worry about this.

Governor Palin responded: "I do, from the bottom of my heart. I am such a strong believer that McCain believes in those strong planks and we do have good conversations about some of the details too, about the different planks and what they represent."

The 2008 GOP platform is a bit more conservative than it was in 2004. If McCain is going to implement it - something of which Palin is convinced from the bottom of her heart - then that means that McCain will support a constitutional amendment to ban all abortion (including those cases where the mother was raped or was the victim of incest), a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and he will oppose government-sponsored embryonic stem cell research.

Either Palin trying to mislead Dobson, equivocate, or perhaps he doesn't know what her running mate believes. McCain opposes a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.... He supports embryonic stem cell research...he opposes a constitutional amendment banning all abortion. Read the platform for yourself: On abortion... on gay marriage... on stem cells...

So McCain is now in favor of forcing rape victims to carry their rapists' babies to term? This should be fun. Read the rest of this post...

Meet Sarah Palin's $13,000/month beautician

Sarah is so Joe Six Pack.

Well, if Joe Six Pack were Ivana Trump.



Sarah Palin spent $13,200 last month on make-up alone (that's $158,400 a year). That's $4,000 more than John McCain spent on his beauty treatments in September ($8,672.55 a month, or $104,000 a year). Palin's one month expense for make-up is about a quarter of Joe the Plumber's annual income. Then again, it takes a lot of expensive make-up when you're wearing $150,000 in clothes. Read the rest of this post...

McCain mistakenly says "c*nt" (insert a "u") at campaign event today

Watch Cindy's face.



Yeah, it's funny. And sad. But it's also relevant. Watch the video below - it's based on a true story. Oh, and the video is definitely out there.  You can watch a safe version here.

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Al-Qaeda endorses McCain (seriously)

From AP:

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

Read the rest of this post...

Call center workers in two states quit over anti-Obama scripts

Two different states. Karma's a bitch.

Read the rest of this post...

Compare McCain 18 months ago to McCain today

I was watching a video I posted earlier from TPM, and I noticed how strong, smart and energetic McCain was during one of the Republican debates. It was a McCain I'd not seen for a long while, but one I vaguely remembered. I checked the date and saw it was from May of last year, 2007. Then I watched McCain making his gaffe yesterday in Pennsylvania. They're two totally differently people. The McCain of today is less sure of himself, stumbles with his words, loses his train of thought, gets confused. He looks much older. He evens sounds older. The old McCain (of 18 months ago) had a lower voice. The new McCain has a higher raspy voice. It's kind of weird how much he's aged in just 18 months - and he's not even president yet. So I put the videos side by side. See for yourself.

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Pennsylvania???

The McCain strategy to focus resources on Pennsylvania doesn't make sense to political analysts -- and me. But, that's because there is no sense behind it. It's desperation. The McCain staffers come from the Rove school. They try to play mind games and use fake-out strategies. They like to think they can outsmart everyone watching. But, fighting for Pennsylvania exposed the reality that they are actually just bad political strategists. If they want to dump money into PA, let them. Meanwhile, Obama can keep racking up the vote in the really competitive states.

From the Los Angeles Times:

John McCain's efforts to snare Pennsylvania appear to be faltering despite a substantial commitment of his time, leaving him with a narrower path to the magic number of 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

McCain is targeting Pennsylvania in hopes of winning at least one state that voted for Democrat John F. Kerry in 2004. With 21 electoral votes, a victory in Pennsylvania could offset possible losses in smaller states captured by President Bush in the last contest.

Yet by any number of measures, McCain's prospects are dimming. An aggregate of public polls shows Barack Obama with a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 1.1 million, about twice the gap in 2004, state figures show.

What's more, prominent Republicans worry that McCain's message is flawed or is being drowned out by waves of Obama ads.

The New York Times:

People are scratching their heads: Why is Senator John McCain here?

Senator Barack Obama has a double-digit lead in recent Pennsylvania polls. Senator John Kerry beat President Bush here in 2004. The previous three Democratic presidential candidates won, too. And this year there are 1.2 million more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state.

But in these frantic last weeks of the 2008 campaign, Mr. McCain has lavished time and money on this now deep-blue state — he made three stops here on Tuesday — as if his political life depended on it. And, from his campaign’s point of view, it does.

“We need to win Pennsylvania on Nov. 4, and with your help — with your help — we’re going to win!” Mr. McCain shouted to the crowd in his first appearance of the day, at a manufacturing plant in Bensalem, north of Philadelphia, where he said that Mr. Obama would raise their taxes and was too untested to handle an international crisis.

Mr. McCain’s strategists insisted that the state and its 21 electoral votes were within reach and crucial to what they acknowledge is an increasingly narrow path to victory. They say that their own polls show Mr. McCain only seven or eight percentage points behind Mr. Obama. (The state polls that show Mr. Obama with a double-digit lead, all conducted in recent weeks, include surveys by Marist, Quinnipiac, Rasmussen, SurveyUSA and The Allentown Morning Call.)

Keep it up, McCain campaign.

QUICK UPDATE @ 9:10 a.m.: I'm watching MSNBC. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell travels with McCain -- and is pretty much a McCain campaign spokesperson. The McCain people told O'Donnell that their polls show movement towards McCain. No one else is seeing it, but O'Donnell seems to believe it because surely no one on the McCain campaign would ever lie. And, Kelly wants us to know that McCain has spent an awful lot of time in New Hampshire. O'Donnell is one painful reporter. All she does is regurgitate McCain talking points.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's the Pollster.com chart. It's worse for McCain than Iowa:
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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

13 days.

Living in D.C., we're getting the t.v. ads for Virginia. I saw probably 12 ads during the first half hour of the TODAY Show. I can report first-hand that the McCain ads are 100% negative.

Time is running out for the Republicans. At some point, you'd think John McCain would try to save his dignity and make an attempt to restore his honor. But, he won't. Instead, McCain and his party will get even uglier. They're losing. They're desperate. How low can they go? There is no limit. The GOP wants to destroy the Obama presidency before it even begins. That's their new goal. The GOP must be crushed -- up and down the ballot.

But, at least Sarah and Todd are looking good. $150,000 worth of looking good.

Let's get it started with 13 days left...it's almost over. Stay focused. Read the rest of this post...

Over 80% of states reporting job losses

And in the nine states that are reporting positive growth, it's much too low to have a significant impact. This is what Republican economic policy has done to the economy. Two recessions with the second being the worst since the Great Depression.

The number of states suffering monthly job losses more than doubled in September, with Michigan losing the greatest number of jobs, according to a government report released Tuesday.

Private sector and government jobs fell in 41 states and the District of Columbia last month, the Labor Department said. By comparison, only 18 states reported monthly job losses in August.

The widespread job losses are a sign of a recession, said Bob Brusca, an economist at Fact and Opinion Economics in New York.

"You expect to see job losses across the board, across the country," Brusca said.

The numbers released Tuesday underline the grim condition of the nation's job market.

Read the rest of this post...

Rising unemployment suggests even higher foreclosures in 2009

Despite all of the Palin-McCain talk about "socialism" they still can get around the fact that what we have witnessed (and continue to experience) is socialism for CEOs and the elite. People who pumped up the market and made commissions at every turn are still sitting on those profits. Look at those "failures" in the banking industry who were handed the keys to Fort Knox, without question. Even now, Wall Street is receiving the rescue package and yet they still are paying out $70 billion in 2008 bonus money. How the heck is this even possible? Good work, when you can get it. For everyone else, not so much.

If 2008 was a record year for mortgages entering foreclosure, 2009 could look even worse: While home-price declines have been driving foreclosure starts recently, mounting job losses could add another layer of stress on American homeowners, the chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Tuesday.

A recession appears to be underway, according to the MBA's annual economic forecast, which projects negative economic growth through the middle of next year. The MBA presented its forecast to reporters Tuesday at its annual convention, being held in San Francisco.

Unemployment also will likely accelerate, perhaps reaching 7.7% by the end of next year, making it tougher for some people to stay in their homes, said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist of the MBA. He doesn't expect a rapid recovery in the jobs market, either: Unemployment won't decline until late 2010, according to MBA projections.

And while new-home production has decreased, the housing market will still continue to struggle with high inventories of for-sale properties. "Even though we see the new-home inventories falling, we see existing-home numbers increase," Brinkmann said.

No surprise, then, that he also doesn't expect home building to ramp up again soon: New-home sales will be down by 36% this year, compared with last year. Next year, new-home sales will be down by 12% -- though perhaps reaching a bottom in 2009. Sales are expected to rise 25% in 2010.

And remember, the MBA has often given a rosier-than-reality assessment of the market so if this is what they are saying in public one can imagine what they are saying behind closed doors. Read the rest of this post...

Bush's FEMA blames the victims for formaldehyde

Oh really, how unusual. So countless studies and judges have faulted FEMA for formaldehyde problems in other mobile homes but the trailers distributed in Iowa for flood victims were just fine. In fact, FEMA goes beyond that and blames the high levels of formaldehyde on the "lifestyles" of the victims including dry-cleaning items left inside. OK, so let's go with the FEMA list of "smoking, cooking and dry-cleaning" as the primary sources of the problem. What did FEMA expect people to do? People cook, smoke and have dry-cleaning laying around so how could FEMA not envision such problems? Were they supposed to cook outside even if it's raining or a cold Iowa winter? If smoking and dry-cleaning were known problems, why not alert people to the problems ahead of time so they could smoke outside?

In a conference call with reporters, three FEMA officials questioned KGAN's testing methods and the validity of the findings.

"Only mobile homes and only park models that fell below (the state's formaldehyde threshold) and validated through that testing were provided to the state of Iowa," said FEMA Assistant Administrator David Garratt. "FEMA stands behind those tests."

Gov. Chet Culver has asked FEMA Administrator David Paulison for retesting of the trailers, and Garratt said the agency was discussing it. Phone calls to FEMA later Tuesday were not returned.

Garratt said FEMA tests trailers before people move in so the air sample is consistent. He said cooking, smoking and storing dry-cleaning products can elevate levels of formaldehyde.

"It's not unusual that the levels in a mobile home will rise and fall as different variables are introduced into that," Garratt said. "From FEMA's perspective, the mobile homes and park models that we have deployed into Iowa are probably the most safe in terms of formaldehyde levels in the state of Iowa."

Capt. Merritt Lake, the director of forest health protection and wellness with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Health Affairs, said the survey didn't fit government-approved methods for testing for formaldehyde.

See. There they go again, talking as though the Bush administration, stripped down "approved" method if testing is meaningful. Republicans have stripped down safety testing across the board, so claiming "government standards" means nothing today. The GOP always likes to fall back on this kind of talk when they hit a problem but their word is meaningless. That is what it's come to these days. Read the rest of this post...

McCain/Palin and Bush/Cheney: Two of a Kind

Read the rest of this post...

Behold, the great American health care system

Clearly these costs would be lower if everyone could buy insurance anywhere with their fantastic tax credit. That's the real problem. Or is it because the lawyers are all at fault? No, it's Bill Clinton's fault. No, it's because lefties are disrespecting Old Glory. D'oh. Best health care in the world...south of Canada and still in North America. Perhaps.

A woman says she waited 19 hours at Parkland Memorial Hospital’s emergency department for treatment of a broken leg and never did get to see a doctor — but still got a bill for $162.

Amber Joy Milbrodt, who said she broke a bone in her leg while playing volleyball, received the bill two weeks after her Sept. 24 visit.

Parkland officials say the bill was appropriate because a nurse spent time checking her vital signs to assess her level of need.

But that’s not how Milbrodt sees it. “It should have been more like them paying me for having to sit in the emergency room for 19 hours,” she told The Dallas Morning News.

The assessment by the nurse, which lasted a few minutes, established her place in line that night. By that time, Milbrodt said, she had already been waiting about 3½ hours.

She still had not been called more than 15 hours later, so she gave up and went home. She had an X-ray taken at a chiropractic school where she is a student, and that had already confirmed that she had a fracture.

“She’s not paying for waiting,” says Rick Rhine, the hospital’s vice president in charge of billing. “She’s paying for the assessment she received.”

Yes, that's some service. Stories such as this always remind me of the two (yes, two) times my father was dying and was rushed to the hospital on a 911 call. The bastards at the ER stopped him from being wheeled in so they could take time to leisurely confirm his health insurance. What compassion. Why do hospitals even exist when they treat people so poorly? Read the rest of this post...