Follow on TwitterWATCH: Insurance Company Aetna Sues Out-Of-Network Surgeons For Price Gauging Their Patients By 2,500%
Bloomberg reports that health insurer Aetna is now suing seven ‘out-of-network’ California surgery centers, for over-billing them by as much as 2,500% for standard medical procedures. A few examples of the excessive charges include:
$66,000 to treat a bunion (normally costs $3,600),
$56,980 for a ‘bedside consultation,’
$99,750 to get earwax removed,
$119,671 for lower back disc-surgery (normally $6,000)
WATCH:
This serves as a perfect example of how the U.S. ‘for-profit’ healthcare industry price gauges, not only at the payer level, but also at the provider level.
Wall Street Protesters Plan To Turn Lower Manhattan Into America’s ‘Tahrir Square’
Thousands of peaceful protesters have descended on New York City’s financial district today to send a loud message to President Barack Obama: “End the influence money has over our representatives in Washington”.
The protesters intend to create a ‘city of tents’ and remain there for as long as it takes for their “one demand” to be met.
The organizers, including Vancouver-based Adbusters Magazine, US Day of Rage, the Anonymous hacktivist group, and the people of the NYC General Assembly, hope to press the US government to take action against its own corporate hijacking — a result of the recent controversial Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United.
As expressed by the organizers:
Unfortunately, free and fair elections are a thing of the past in America. Because of recent Supreme Court decisions, money is flowing freely and unaccountably into the American electoral process. Elections will be swayed by interests opposed to those of the United States. Corporations, even those owned by foreign shareholders, will and do use money to act as the voices of millions, while individual citizens, the legitimate voters, are silenced and demoralized by the farce of American Democracy.
The President and the First Lady, ironically enough, will be in New York City this Monday (Sept 19-20) schmoozing those same moneyed-interests at a private $38,500 per person Park Avenue fundraising event. The protesters hope to extend an invitation to the President to come downtown and to “join our people’s assembly”.
At the OccupyWallStreet website, the organizers describe the protesters as every American, apart from the corrupted establishment:
Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.
There are solidarity protests also being held in other parts of the world, including Milan, Madrid, Valencia, London, Lisbon, Athens, San Francisco, Santander, Madison, Amsterdam, Los Angeles and now Algeria and Israel.
Here is footage of the protests:
You can continue to watch the protests via this live feed: LiveStream
Twitter hashtags to follow: #OccupyWallStreet, #TakeWallStreet, #Sep17
Organizer Twitter Accts: @Adbusters, @USDayOfRage, @AnonOps, @OccupyWallSt
EDIT: Originally, the number of protesters was estimated to be “Tens of thousands”. In light of new information that estimate has been revised.
WATCH: US State Dept. Spokesman Struggles To Explain US Hypocrisy In Egypt
Here’s an excellent al Jazeera interview that perfectly demonstrates America’s misguided and hypocritical Middle East policy.
US State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley gets tongue-tied trying to explain how the United States can on one hand claim to support the Egyptian protesters in their fight against torture, poverty, corruption & unemployment, while simultaneously propping up their brutal dictator Hasni Mubarak with $1.3 billion per year.
The rhetorical tightrope Crowley attempts to walk will leave you cringing. Which could be said of most US State Department press briefings these days.
I encourage the “They hate us for our freedom” crowd to take a moment, and watch this video clip:
Watch: How Obama Lost His Grass Roots Supporters – In A Nutshell
Here is a CAN’T MISS discussion between Dylan Ratigan, Glenn Greenwald and Cenk Uygur on the contentious divisions which now exist between Progressives and the President (and the Democratic Party). The three identify Obama’s ultimate betrayal — which underlies a series of more easily identifiable ones, including his deliberate undermining of meaningful health care reform, [...]
Why Obama’s Policies Put Wall Street’s Interests Ahead Of Main Street’s
Dan Froomkin at Huffington Post connects the dots: Many of [Obama's] chief financial advisers have pocketed extraordinary amount of money from banks and Wall Street, and presumably intend to do so again. They are part of the banker class, and their loyalties have been bought and paid for. Examples? Obama’s top economic adviser, Larry Summers: [...]
The Status Quo And How Washington Ensures It
A major impasse appears to exist these days between Democrats and Republicans on virtually every issue. On the surface, it would seem it’s all ideology-based. But upon closer inspection, their hostilities are, in large part, incited by media-manufactured outrage, where partisan vitriol and ideological demagoguery drowns out all thoughtful discourse. Unfortunately, our country is in [...]
Obama’s ‘Lobbyist Ban’: A White House ‘Aspiration’ To Remain Unenforced
Kevin Bogardus of The Hill did a nice follow-up on the status of Obama’s campaign promise to ban all lobbyists from serving in his administration. The White House issued a ‘guidance’ on the matter two weeks ago, and here’s what Bogardus’s investigative reporting uncovered: The Hill contacted all 20 Cabinet-level agencies to see if they [...]
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