A Day to Bare Our Souls - and Find Ourselves

THE BROKEN LEVEE-MAKER

Seen the movie THE RAINMAKER? Unfortunately that movie was more truth than fiction. How do I know? I have been through something similar with the insurance industry.

When I became disabled in 1995 the first thing that happened was my employer at the time did everything to try to fire me and get rid of me. Everything. But I guess they didn't know who they were dealing with. Without a lawyer but the help of my physician, they were unable to fire me. In fact, I believe the head of Personnel got quite an upbraiding for what he and my department supervisor attempted to do.

This isn't unique. Many big businesses will do whatever they can to get a disabled person off their rolls before the insurance hit.

Oh and my disability insurer? Was one of their clients.

The disability insurer usually picks a few people to try to discredit. First they tried to say I was mentally ill, which has a 2-year limit. (please see my prior posts on the Wellstone Bill for Mental Health Parity) A 2-year limit for mental health? Is a joke. Of course the medical whores... er, doctors the insurer sent me to for review did everything they could to discredit me. Again, I used what little energy I had to fight that. Every year they try to get me to sign something that would let them turn my personal life inside out. Sorry, its not a requirement and I am not doing that. They went so far as to have investigators parked outside my old address to see when I came & went. One day I just walked over to the navy blue car and asked the guy with the camera if he wanted some coffee. He drove away pretty quickly. I was hobbling to the sidewalk to wait for a car service. Guess he wanted to see if I could drive myself to the doctor.

Yes, this is how we treat sick people in the Land of the Free. We desperately need ERISA reform as the baby boomers are aging. But that is another post for another day.

However, get disabled and you become the underclass - seen but not heard. Next time you have to fill out an online form - see if it says DISABLED under JOB DESCRIPTION. Retired is as close as it gets but retired is a choice, DISABLED is thrust upon you. You loose your job, your life, your friends and you become a prisoner of your home. I am blessed that I have a computer in my house and a few friends who actually understand me now. I still have many days where I can only blog for an hour or so until I can't sit or my eyes won't focus anymore.

The Insurance Industry in the U.S. is a joke. And unless you have been through what I have with the (and still go through like a revolving door. How someone who is severely crippled can handle that I don't know) Insurance Industry then please don't criticize me here. Well people always say I am over-reacting... until it happens to them. No I am NOT trying to be Michael Moore here - I am just trying to tell a personal story to segway into this one. There should be a support group for "INSURANCE INDUSTRY SURVIVORS."

Believe me the Property Insurance Industry is no different!

I saw this today in the news and said OH MY! so loud one of my kids thought I'd seen a ghost.

I had.

The ghost of the bottom line meaning more than human life in the U.S.A. thanks to (I'm convinced) the biggest lobby in Washington, D.C. What sent me into such despair was this:

Insurers Win Court Ruling on Katrina Levee Claims

Insurers including Allstate Corp. don’t have to pay homeowners for the damage caused when Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed levees in New Orleans in 2005, a U.S. appeals court ruled today.

Reversing a lower court’s ruling, a three-judge panel in the Fifth Circuit appeals court in New Orleans said policy language used by 13 insurers clearly says flooding damage is excluded, whether it’s caused by the failure of manmade levees or not. Lawyers seeking class-action status on behalf of thousands of policyholders sought to invalidate the exclusions because the floods were “artificially caused.'’

A victory for the policyholders may have cost the industry billions of dollars, Meyer Shields, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore, estimated after a U.S. District Court judge ruled in favor of the policyholders in November. In addition to Allstate, the country’s largest publicly traded home insurer, defendants include American International Group Inc., Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., and Travelers Cos.

The flood exclusions in the policies “unambiguously'’ preclude payment “even if the plaintiffs can prove that the levees were negligently designed, constructed or maintained,'’ the appeals panel wrote. John Ellison, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, didn’t immediately return phone calls.

District Court Judge Stanwood Duval’s original ruling said the one defendant that didn’t use ambiguous language was State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the largest U.S. home insurer. Mike Siemienas, a spokesman for Northbrook, Illinois- based Allstate, and Fraser Engerman, a spokesman for Bloomington, Illinois-based State Farm, said the companies were pleased with the latest ruling.

`Most Dubious’

“The idea that insurers’ policies might have covered a levee break is among the most dubious ever to be floated,'’ Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, said in an interview before the appeals court ruling. “It represents yet another attempt to find coverage where it clearly doesn’t extend.'’

The shares of Allstate rose 25 cents to $53.78 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

The case is: In Re Katrina Canal Breaches Consolidated Litigation, No. 05-4182, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).

SOURCE

Just a reminder:

What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them. - Former First Lady & Mother of the Current U.S. President: Barbara Bush on NPR's Marketplace, September 2005

Don't believe me? That's O.K. but read this before you think I am being Chicken Little about this outrage. And guess who the BIGGEST lobbying groups in Washington are? Remember: tobacco is now #2.

Interest groups spent nearly $700 million lobbying Washington

January 6, 2000

Insurers ... and other interest groups spent $697 million to lobby Congress and the federal agencies during the first six months of 1999, a new report says. That's $116 million per month spent to influence the federal government, according to the report released Thursday by FEC Info, an Internet consulting firm that specializes in tracking political money.

"It is an incredible amount," said Tony Raymond, a founder of FEC Info. "These are the moneymakers. They have two groups they work on: the legislators, the people who write the laws, but they also work on their home offices, saying 'Our competitors are spending this much on lobbying; we need to catch up with them."'

The amount is similar to the $710 million spent on lobbying during the first six months of 1998, according to figures compiled by researchers at the Center for Responsive Politics, which also analyzed federal lobbying disclosure reports. FEC Info is a subsidiary of the Internet public policy and health care technology company Netivation.com.

SOURCE

We, the people, are failing our citizens. We are failing to see the threat of terrorism from without and apathy from within are killing America. Corporate America and greed have replaced empathy and humanity. Human life is just a figure on a balance sheet. We need change and I really don't see it on the horizon.

I pray for all of us. We sorely need it.


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