THE RICHEST THIRD WORLD NATION

By SARA CORBETT

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18healthcare-t.html?ref=us

Long before the dentists and the doctors got there, before the nurses, the hygienists and X-ray techs came, before anyone had flicked on the portable mammography unit or sterilized the day's first set of surgical instruments, the people who needed them showed up to wait. It was 3 a.m. at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Virginia - Friday, July 20, 2007 - the start of a rainy Appalachian morning. Outside the gates, people lay in their trucks or in tents pitched along the grassy parking lot, waiting for their chance to have their medical needs treated at no charge - part of an annual three-day "expedition" led by a volunteer medical relief corps called Remote Area Medical.

The group, most often referred to as RAM, has sent health expeditions to countries like Guyana, India, Tanzania and Haiti, but increasingly its work is in the United States, where 47 million people - more than 15 percent of the population - live without health insurance. Residents of remote rural areas are less likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to have health insurance and more likely to be in fair or poor health. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, nearly half of all adults in rural America are living with at least one chronic condition. Other research has found that in these areas, where hospitals and primary-care providers are in short supply, rates of arthritis, hypertension, heart ailments, diabetes and major depression are higher than in urban areas.

And so each summer, shortly after the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair and Horse Show wraps up at the fairgrounds, members of Virginia Lions Clubs start bleaching the premises, readying them for RAM's volunteers, who, working in animal stalls and beneath makeshift tents, provide everything from teeth cleaning and free eyeglasses to radiology and minor surgery. The problem, says RAM's founder, Stan Brock, is always in the numbers, with the patients' needs far outstripping what his team can supply. In Wise County, when the sun rose and the fairground gates opened at 5:30 on Friday morning, more than 800 people already were waiting in line. Over the next three days,

some 2,500 patients would receive care, but at least several hundred, Brock estimates, would be turned away. He adds: "There comes a point where the doctors say: 'Hey, I gotta go. It's Sunday evening, and I have to go to work tomorrow.' "

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

A GRIM FAIRY TALE

http://www.lawyerfsandsettlements.com/articles/01590/unum-morphed.html

Portland,OR: -- Once upon a time, there was nice insurance company called Unum Provident; it had a good reputation and quality product. The people who worked there believed in honesty and integrity. But a bunch of nasty managers decided to produce favorable profits at the expense of its policy holders. The happy company morphed into First Unum and became the Darth Vader of the insurance industry.

"Be ashamed, be very ashamed if you work for this company," says Robert O'mea, former general agent for UnumProvident (now First Unum) and noted expert on disability insurance. "I am ashamed that I worked there from 1979 to 1981." O'mea also worked for Canada life as a general agent and did training for new and existing agents. Compared to First Unum, Canada Life was its exact opposite. According to O'mea, First Unum is "a corporate culture of deceit and greed is their common denominator."

"The way this insurance company operates is like saying there is no God," says O'mea. "They have made people's lives a shambles. They have no conscience—they have no intention of paying their claims."

O'mea explains that the federal government's response has indicated First Unum's bad faith. "Judge Learned Hand, in an opinion given for the US Court of Appeals, said the only purpose that an insurance company has, is to pay claims. Insurance companies are given a special and favorable tax status because of the social benefits they provide—and Unum has violated this trust at every opportunity.

"When I worked there, this wouldn't have happened; it wasn't an option," he says. What went so horribly wrong and when? O'mea says it was nothing more than sheer greed that started about eight or nine years ago. Management got together and saw nothing but dollar signs—for them.

How did it escalate and how did they get away with it for so long? "It has taken a while for people to catch up," says O'mea. "If I researched this company before signing a policy, I wouldn't have paid a dime. The public still doesn't know what kind of damage they are doing. Frankly, the federal and state governments will have to pay a substantial amount of money—they will have to pay the benefits that Unum declines."

For example, a widow works all her life and gets hurt on the job. Unum denies her so she goes on welfare—for the rest of her life. The government pays and Unum walks away.

A CORPORATION IS NOT A PERSON, ALTHOUGH SOMETIMES THEY THINK THEY ARE GOD

http://consciousmedianetwork.com/movie/corporation.htm

The Corporation

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

STOP UNUM

A Worldwide Very Serious Problem: Please ask ALL you contacts to Support the Goals of www.StopUnum.com now

Inform public and political opinion:- by highlighting major concerns and a clear conflict of interest regarding Unum's strong influence on U.K. Government policy for reforming the N.H.S., state welfare benefits and pensions.

Call for a commercial BOYCOTT of the Unum Corp.:- despite millions of dollars in fines and serious warnings issued to this company to stop engaging in illegal behavior, Unum's unethical business conduct and practices continue. Check all Unum's trading names, subsidiaries and who it acts on behalf of on StopUnum Home page.

Gather public support to demand changes to the law, which will prevent and deter illegal bad faith practices against policyholders:- Unum continues to unfairly terminate its financial responsibility to a significant number of long-term disability claimants in order to boost its profit. For many years, Unum has successfully shifted its corporate financial responsibility for some of its policyholders over to the taxpayer, forcing consumers on to state welfare benefits.

Gather public support to demand an Independent Investigation into the Unum-British Government relationship:- given Unum's reputation as an "outlaw" branded insurance company and its continued illegal business conduct, those in British Government supporting Unum and trusting in it to provide ethical assistance with N.H.S. reform, implementing Unum's non-medical "Bio-Psycho-Social" in University education and national "Occupational Therapy" official training programmes or take advice on state welfare and pension reform; should be held accountable for their actions. The British people will want to know exactly why irresponsible decisions have been made, to trust in an "outlaw" branded company, which affects very important matters such as medical education, occupational training, the NHS, welfare and pensions.

The Future?

First, they assessed the disabled in the name of "Pathways to Work" and I didn't speak up - I was not disabled. Then they assessed the chronically and mentally ill in the name of "Pathways to Work" and I didn't speak up - I was still healthy. Then they assessed the elderly in the name of "Pathways to Heaven through Work" and I didn't speak up - I was still young. Then they assessed me but unfortunately, there was no one left to speak up to...

Another Unknown, somewhere in the UK 2015

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

SCREW THE TAXPAYER AND HELP THE BAD GUY

http://www.barbclark.org/

Barb Clark addresses the California Fraud Assessment Commission (CFAC) in 2006.  CFAC collected $40 Million last year to "fight workers comp fraud" by giving millions to state district attorneys to prosecute injured workers, as the infamous David Wolf scandal points out.  Insurers are immune from prosecution (see SCIF scandal and the missing $1 Billion dollars).
What is this case all about?

This case involves alleged illegal and unethical schemes by a network of Sourthern California attorneys that have defrauded injured workers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical treatment. Allegations of mail fraud have been cited concerning the unneccessary delaying of complex civil litigation in the federal, state and workers' compensation courts through the use of perjured testimony. Allegations are being prepared that these attroneys shared litigation and office expenses and paid kickbacks to each other. See Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and mail fraud. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(c) and 1341.

Webmaster's Comments: I've spoken of this often. Corrupt DAs and state regulators are often funded by insurers, so they set up so-called Fraud Task Forces whose real purpose is to harass and intimidate honest claimants. If you ask them to investigate fraud by insurers, don't hold your breath.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

INTERESTING NEW NETRADIO

newsforthesoul.com

The News for the Soul Story ... Hear about how News for the Soul - the #1 totally free life changing audio resource on the world wide web - was created by one "broke, down and out single mom on disability". Just before launching News for the Soul in January 1997, Nicole Whitney had 3 incurable diseases, two children, no family, money or resources and plenty of excellent reasons why single handedly launching a new form of alternative media wasn't possible. Nonetheless, she hobbled to the printers on her cane, her one year old and eight year old daughters in tow, and printed her first "positive news newspaper" edition using that month's disability check, along with some faith and sheer will ... Over the next decade, the paper then called Know News evolved into a leading resource for self empowerment in print and radio and on the internet. And somehow along the way, the three "incurable'' diseases vanished along with Nicole's old way of thinking and being. Now News for the Soul serves the awakening global community and reminds us all that anything truly is possible. FIND OUT MORE: http://www.newsforthesoul.com/index.htm