Cigna – Healthcare-NOW

Welcome to the Future of Your Health Insurance. It Sucks.

By Yves Smith for Naked Capitalism – There have been numerous reports about the shortcomings of Obamacare which its boosters have either ignored or shouted down. And troublingly, the attitude is often “I got mine” as in “My kids are now covered under my policy” without questioning what the narrow and broader issues are. Well,…

Health Insurers Have Had Their Chance

By Wendell Potter for Huffington Post – Of the many supporters of a single-payer health care system in the United States, some of the most ardent are small business owners who have struggled to continue offering coverage to their workers. Among them are David Steil, a small business owner and former Republican — yes, Republican…

America’s Healthcare Crisis is Getting Worse

By Roger Bybee for In These Times – “I don’t think the American people want shared sacrifice. I think that they want shared prosperity.”—John Watson of Chevron, testifying this month against a proposed $2 billion cut in oil-companies’ annual tax breaks in a year when they are on track to make $100 billion in profits…

Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care

By Reed Abelson for New York Times – The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care. The UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest commercial insurers, told analysts that so far this…

The Insurers’ Real Agenda for Change

By Wendell Potter for the Huffington Post – The media had lots of health care news to obsess about last week. A federal judge ruled the health care reform law unconstitutional, and Senate Republicans tried in vain to repeal the law. But most of the press paid virtually no attention to a potentially much more…

For-Profit Insurers Leaning on Regulators to “Reform” Health Reform

By Wendell Potter for Huffington Post – The nation’s biggest insurers — not happy with provisions of the four-month-old health care reform law that would force many of them to spend more of the money they collect in premiums for their policyholders’ medical care — are pressuring regulators to disregard what members of Congress intended…

Cigna Gives $110.9 Million Compensation Package To Ex-CEO

By Sam Stein for Huffington Post – The insurance giant Cigna last year gave compensation packages worth more than $120 million to two executives who left the company, according to a filing with the SEC on Friday. The vast majority of that total went to former chairman and CEO H. Edward Hanway who left his…

Denial of Care Profits: $73 million for CIGNA’s retiring CEO

By National Nurses Movement – It’s hard for most of us to imagine a lifestyle supported by a $73 million retirement bonus. It’s even harder to imagine a whole nation’s healthcare controlled by those who have benefited so wildly from denying healthcare to those who need it. But Cigna’s Edward Hanway knows well what it…

7 Arrested in Chicago Demanding Single Payer Healthcare

Seven citizens and healthcare providers who are fed up with the state of our healthcare and the healthcare debate were arrest at the downtown offices of Cigna today. The sit-in is part of a national mobilization to end insurance abuse and build support for real reform – Medicare for All, a single-payer plan. ChiSPAN, the…

Between You and Your Doctor: The Bureaucracy of Private Health Insurance

On September 16 and 17, Domestic Policy Subcommittee Chairman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) held a two-part hearing entitled, “Between You and Your Doctor: the Bureaucracy of Private Health Insurance.” The hearing examined how the bureaucracy of private health insurance companies affects the medical care of patients. The Subcommittee heard testimony from: Mr. Mark Gendernalik Father of…