After President Bush vetoed the insurance bill that would have expanded health and medical care to millions of needy, uninsured children—he denounced it as a step towards “socialized medicine” —and extolled the virtues of private health care.
Too bad someone in his audience didn’t have access to the New York Times article on his private drug program. They might have asked some interesting questions.
Robert Pear reports that audits show “thousands of Medicare recipients have been victims of deceptive sales tactics and had claims improperly denied by private insurers “ that run the huge benefit program.
Abuses included improper termination of coverage for people with H.I.V. and AIDS, huge backlogs of claims and complaints and a failure to answer telephone calls from consumers, doctors and drugstores.
Medicare has levied fines of more that $770,000 on 11 companies for marketing violations and failure to provide timely notice to beneficiaries about changes in costs and benefits. The companies include United Health, Humana and Well Point.
Ah, the glory of "private care".
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