July 18, 2009 archive

Money and Health Reform

‘The Cause of My Life’

Inside the fight for universal health care.

By Edward M. Kennedy | NEWSWEEK

In 1964, I was flying with several companions to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention when our small plane crashed and burned short of the runway. My friend and colleague in the Senate, Birch Bayh, risked his life to pull me from the wreckage. Our pilot, Edwin Zimny, and my administrative assistant, Ed Moss, didn’t survive. With crushed vertebrae, broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, I spent months in New England Baptist Hospital in Boston. To prevent paralysis, I was strapped into a special bed that immobilizes a patient between two canvas slings. Nurses would regularly turn me over so my lungs didn’t fill with fluid. I knew the care was expensive, but I didn’t have to worry about that. I needed the care and I got it……….

Tear Down this Wall, Private Insurers!

There is a bit of a Cold War of sorts, raging between Private Insurance “providers” and your neighborhood Health Care professionals (and it’s NOT the Govt getting in between the two.)

It’s the battle over Claim Denials. It’s an “arms race” that just keeps escalating …

DMI: Denial Management, Inc — The Claims Solution People

The Problem:

One in seven claims are denied by insurance companies. This can cost your clinic or practice thousands of dollars every year.

http://www.claimsmgt.com/produ…

That’s about 15% of Claims, Insurers choose NOT to pay. So, Doctors need all the help they can get, to stay focused on Healing, NOT Bill Collecting!

Denial Management Services

Problem: Most Health Systems lose between 3% and 5% of net revenues as a result of payment denials.

Solution: Outsource your denied claims to DMI, the foremost industry leader in capturing additional revenue.

http://www.claimsmgt.com/compa…

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 CIT talks to bondholders; bankruptcy still feared

By Paritosh Bansal and Jennifer Ablan, Reuters

Sat Jul 18, 9:22 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – CIT Group Inc is in talks with a group of bondholders for $2 billion to $3 billion in rescue financing as it tries hard to avoid bankruptcy, a source close to the company said late on Friday.

Bankruptcy is possible if these talks fail, and CIT, a 101-year-old lender that services nearly one million small- and mid-sized businesses, is also exploring the possibility of getting debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing, the source said.

The focus of talks turned to the bondholders after earlier negotiations with JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc about short-term financing out of court did not result in a deal, the source said.

LA Times killed NSA whistleblower’s story

I found this story at Cryptogon, but it originated at ComputerWorld:

The NSA Wiretapping Story Nobody Wanted

This demonstrates, yet again, how incestuous is the relationship between the corporate-owned Big Brother government and its Mouthpiece Media:


I was most worried at the time when the LA Times was killing my story, but at the same time the LA Times showed it to the government. Then I really was panicking because that meant that the government knew everything and probably knew my name, but I didn’t have any publicity.

IDGNS: The media merit a full chapter (entitled: ‘Going Public vs. Media Chickens’) in your book. What happened there?

Klein: The LA Times was particularly egregious because they were planning a front-page spread. They were the first entity I’d given all the documents to. Then they talked to the government about it, and it turned out they were talking to not only the NSA director, but the director of national intelligence, who was John Negroponte at the time. So that meant the government knew it. And then a few weeks later the LA Times killed the story. So the only thing you can read into is that basically the government squashed the story. [The LA Times’ editor in early 2006, Dean Baquet, said the government had nothing to do with the decision. ‘We did not have a story, that we could not figure out what was going on,’ he told ABC News — ed.]

IDGNS: How long did they have the story?

Klein: I started dealing with them in late January 2006, and in February they showed it to the government, and then they started wobbling. By the end of March 2006, they officially told me the story was killed.

IDGNS: Did they cover it in April, after it became public?

Klein: No that was funny. After it finally hit the news everywhere else, The LA Times didn’t run with the stuff I’d given them. They’d squashed the whole thing.

Obama Begins to Fight the Status Quo and The Ruling Class

Listen to the impatience and frustration in his voice, hahaha.

This is his issue, as I have said many times before, and the GreedMonsters who control this country and the Congress are giving him a lesson on JUST how much they will lie, cheat, bribe and propagandize in order to get what they want. No matter what the cost to The People or the country.

He is finally, to my ear, losing his naivete, and his hope of some bipartisan nirvana, and beginning to fight back. The Ruling Class is educating him on how things really work, and he is beginning to realize that if he doesn’t actively fight against them and call them out (still a bit weakly, all things considered) that they will destroy him and his Presidency and Hope and Change.

Sen DeMint has said that health care is their chance to “break Obama.” Maybe, perhaps, we hope….Obama has realized he is going to have to break THEM just to survive and have a vital Presidency. Maybe he is starting to realize the viciousness and the Rules Of Class War

Let’s hope he learns the lesson well and will become the President we need in these times.

A President who will fight, not just accommodate. Let’s hope that this is just the beginning.

Our robots won’t eat corpses.

This is a short one.

CNet

EATR CREATORS: OUR ROBOTS WON’T EAT CORPSES

“For those of you who have been asleep since Tuesday, the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, or EATR, is a steam-powered robot being developed for military purposes. Its claim to fame is that it can “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically based energy sources). . .

Dark Soul -Chapter Seven

Happy Saturday and welcome to the Dog’s serialization of the novel Dark Soul. This is a work in progress, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions, don’t be shy about offering them up.

If you have just started reading this, you can find chapters one through three at the following links:

Dark Soul – Chapter One

Dark Soul – Chapter Two

Dark Soul – Chapter Three

Dark Soul – Chapter Four

Dark Soul – Chapter Five

Dark Soul – Chapter Six

This serialization is only available here at Docudharma!  

Why stop at “Race War”, Rush? Tell us how you REALLY feel

“[T]he race war among Democrats continues — even though Obama won”

mediamatters.org

   Why stop at “Race War”, Rush?

   Why not go farther, like class war?

   Oh, but if we were to unite the have nots against the millionaires, it would be over pretty quick, huh Rush?

   Yeah, been there, done that for the last 200 years.

    Crossposted at Daily Kos

Docudharma Times Saturday July 18




Saturday’s Headlines:

Democrats Grow Wary as Health Bill Advances

U.S. judge ends federal oversight of the LAPD

Iran: Words to heed

Rafsanjani calls on Iran to release protesters

Chechen President hits back over claim he ordered activist’s murder

US firm averts French explosion

Jakarta bombers may have been guests at Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, police say

Q&A: What is Jemaah Islamiyah?

World celebrates as South Africa’s Mandela turns 91

Post-coup Mauritania election begins

America’s Iconic TV News Anchor Shaped the Medium and the Nation

WALTER CRONKITE 1916-2009

By Bart Barnes and Joe Holley

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, July 18, 2009  


Walter Cronkite, America’s preeminent television journalist of the 1960s and 1970s who as anchor and managing editor of “CBS Evening News” played a primary role in establishing television as the dominant national news medium of that era, died last night at age 92.

CBS Vice President Linda Mason said Cronkite died at 7:42 p.m. with his family by his side at his home in New York after a long illness. He had been suffering from cerebrovascular disease, his family said recently.

In Pakistan, Skardu is suffering backlash of Taliban violence

Residents of the beautiful town of Skardu say the violence roiling other parts of Pakistan is keeping foreigners away. Climbing expeditions are down by half in the area that’s home to K2.

By Mark Magnier

July 18, 2009


Reporting from Skardu, Pakistan — Psst — don’t tell anyone, but there’s still another part of Pakistan, an oasis of striking beauty all but free of the turmoil, Taliban militancy, suicide bombers and security fears that have gripped much of the rest of the country.

Clocks here in Skardu in northern Pakistan, an hour’s flight from Islamabad, may display the same time as their counterparts in the capital, or in Lahore and Karachi. But the slow pace, tranquillity and welcoming of outsiders are more befitting of a long-gone age when traders on horseback plied the nearby Karakoram Highway.

“Someday maybe all of Pakistan will be as peaceful as this,” said Abdul Munim, 29, a businessman from Islamabad who has spent much of the last year building cellphone towers in the isolated region more than 7,000 feet above sea level. “There’s no fear, no danger of going outside, nothing but quiet.”

Late Night Karaoke

 Open Thread

Insanity Open Thread

Ahem. Here’s one that I missed last week.

Wells Fargo Sues Wells Fargo, Wells Fargo Denies Allegations

by CalculatedRisk, Saturday, July 11, 2009

From FoxBusiness: Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself

(ht Rama)

… I could not resist asking Wells Fargo Bank NA why it filed a civil complaint against itself in a mortgage foreclosure case in Hillsborough County, Fla.

In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium, according to Sarasota, Fla., attorney Dan McKillop, who represents the condo owner.

As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.

… court documents clearly label “Wells Fargo Bank NA” as the plaintiff and “Wells Fargo Bank NA” as a defendant.

Wells Fargo hired Florida Default Law Group., P.L., of Tampa, Fla., to file the lawsuit against itself.

And then Wells Fargo hired another Tampa law firm — Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer P.A. — to defend itself against its own lawsuit, according to court documents.

Wells Fargo’s defense lawyers even filed an answer to their client’s own complaint.

“Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property,” the answer reads. “All other allegations of the complaint are denied.”

Your TARP money hard at work…

Horrible Day, Perhaps my Worst Ever 20090717. Updated

Mrs. Translator called this morning to get the divorce documents in order.  I guess that I knew that they were coming, but talk about a wrecking ball in the gut!

I have not been a very good husband the past few years.  We celebrated our 32nd anniversary long distance this past June (and yes, I did send flowers), but things are not quite right.  

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