Tragedy!

Poor William L. Jews. His compensation package for leaving his position as CareFirst CEO has been cut by more than half. This means Mr. Jews will not get the $18 million severance he was expecting, but will receive less than 9 million bucks. Can you imagine having to get by on just shy of 9 million bucks? I mean, you can’t even buy a decent Santa Barbara estate for that kind of money anymore.

Why was this outrage perpetrated? Well, it seems CareFirst is a nonprofit health provider

How much health care does $9 million buy in California?

I was going to write a great post about this idea, but readers will have to make do with slap dash. In order to pass single payer we need to completely discredit the health insurance companies. In order to achieve this we will need their help. Fortunately they are willing to cooperate.

Thus today’s disgrace: Blue Shield sued for allegedly canceling policies

The Los Angeles city attorney is suing Blue Shield of California for allegedly bilking policyholders when they tried to make claims.  Read more 

WellPoint Agrees To Pay $11.8M to California Hospitals Over Health Insurance Policy Cancellations  Read more 

Insurers: Women are just too risky  Read more 

Forum set Thursday on reforming health care

A free public forum on reforming health care in California will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. in Mountain View’s City Hall, 500 Castro St.

Local health care experts and advocates for a new “single-payer” system for the state will discuss accessibility problems of today’s health care and a “Medicare-type” plan designed to make health care more accessible.  Read more 

Via the indispensable Avedon Carol: Rich, powerful corporations can break the law

California regulators admitted Thursday that for more than a year they didn’t even try to enforce a million-dollar fine against health insurer Anthem Blue Cross because they knew they would be outgunned in court.

In early 2007, the Department of Managed Health Care pledged to fine the state’s largest insurer for “routinely rescinding health insurance policies in violation of state law.”

But it never did.

That is a real good reason to not do business with Anthem Blue Cross.

Community Unites to Tell Health Insurance Industy: Health Care Yes, Insurance Companies No!

The June 19 rally will be the first organized mass expression of popular demand for high-quality, affordable health care directed by patients and doctors, not insurance profiteers.  Read more 

Terry McAuliffe to be Protested June 19th

AHIP, America’s Health Insurance Plans, decided downtown San Francisco would be a good place for the health insurance company lobbyists and executives to hold their convention. Not surprisingly, thousands of people will take to the streets at noon on June 19th at the Moscone center  Read more 

SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPES TO VOTE ON HR 676-JUNE 10TH  Read more 

Via Guaranteed Healthcare we learn that Jackie Speier supports a single payer system:

Speier, a longtime consumer rights advocate, told constituents she was most interested in working to solve the home mortgage crisis and reforming health care into a single payer system.

Speier is supporting a plan that would in part allow judges to help determine loan settlements and grant $15 billion in federal funding to help save people from defaulting on their loans, she said.  Read more 

Californians can be real proud so have elected so many sponsors of HR 676.

Barbara Lee

I have reintroduced H.R. 3080, the United States Universal Health Service Act. This bill will specifically make high-quality preventive, acute and long term care available to everyone regardless of demographics, employment status, or previous health status. This health care service creates an entitlement to high-quality health care and supplemental services without charge and without discrimination based on race, sex, age, religion, language, income, employment status, sexual orientation, or previous health status. It also stresses prevention and wellness.  Read more 

I just wanted to show how this thing could go down. Imagine you have a situation of financing companies, big banking firms like MBIA siphoning the resources of the rank and file American. The great corporation doing an ENRON like Fuck You! To the everyday working man – imagine that. If you can’t quite grasp it think of someplace like Pittsburg where:  Read more 

Remember that proposal to change California’s electoral votes from winner-take-all to a split system? Remember how it was pronounced dead a couple of months ago after the top thugs got fighting amongst themselves? Didn’t it seem to you like maybe they rolled over and quit awfully fast?

You were right. They’re Baaaaa-aaak….. Via NYT (on a Saturday afternoon, how conveeenient):

Republican donors are pumping new life into a proposed ballot initiative, considered all but dead by Democrats a month ago, that would alter the way electoral votes are apportioned in California to the benefit of Republican presidential candidates.

Read the link for the rest of the details: the short of it is that this is still Guiliani people behind this, including his former top fundraiser who unexpectedly quit his campaign (on paper anyway) not long ago.

This says to me that she is not a “Guiliani” supporter so much as she is a Republican operative  Read more 

I’ve got a lot to do today, so rapid posting now with return later in commments, go read this tale of what I’m going to start calling “predatory government.” Here’s a sample:

federal appeals court has revived California’s request for at least $1 billion in refunds to electricity customers, saying federal regulators who denied the repayments had ignored tapes in which Enron traders joked about gouging customers during the energy crisis of 2000-2001.

The ruling was issued Friday by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which repeatedly has found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission abused its authority or violated its own rules in considering the state’s claims of multibillion-dollar overcharges during the energy crisis.  Read more 

Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat. - Jesse Ventura

Republicans vying for the presidency must be real wrestling fans…

In 2000, it was the disaster in Florida and a Supreme Court theft of the White House in Bush v. Gore.

In 2004, it was questionable balloting via Diebold voting machines in Ohio.

Now, in 2007, preemption is the rule: steal the 2008 presidential election by another Republican electoral stunt. There is a proposed initiative in California to divide presidential delegates’ votes in the Electoral College.  Read more 

This is so funny….

oh.

wait.

No it’s not (via Carpetbagger Report/SFgate):

The California Republican Party has decided no American is qualified to take one of its most crucial positions — state deputy political director — and has hired a Canadian for the job through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers.  Read more