The lights are on and nobody but RandomCrazy is home...

So you may have noticed the lack of RandomCrazy in your lives these oh so many few months...well ease your mind and relax your heart, we here in the land of Random have returned and Crazy back. And we miss you too.

After a few months of personal as well as technical difficulties the world can sit back, take a nice deep breath and sigh that long overdue sigh of relief RandomCrazy Creatives has returned after a short...well shortish... sabbatical visiting the Universal Universe. And all we have to show for it is a gaping BlackHole where our memories used to be, a few Asteroids in our pockets, a funny looking liquid receptacle and this lousy t-shirt that I think is meant for you.

Ah well....

Cheers!

Ex-insurance exec confesses health insurers dump sick people

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As an oft "dumped" insuree I greet this news with a shrug, a sigh. Though I do salute and support all Whistle-Blowers who find the courage to come forward and speak out.
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A retired health insurance executive — in a shocking but not terribly surprising admission — confessed Wednesday that insurance companies deliberately confuse policyholders and attempt to dump sick patients to plump their profit margins.

“[T]hey confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors,” former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter told senators at a hearing on health insurance Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

“Potter, who has more than 20 years of experience working in public relations for insurance companies Cigna and Humana, said companies routinely drop seriously ill policyholders so they can meet “Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations,’” Potter told the hearing, according to ABC News.

“They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment,” Potter added. “(D)umping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line.”

More details regarding a Senate report follows in an Associated Press story.


Senator: Use of faulty insurance data 'pervasive'

Two-thirds of health insurers used flawed database that overcharged patients, says senator

MATTHEW PERRONE
AP News

Jun 24, 2009 18:42 EST

Congressional investigators said Wednesday two-thirds of the U.S. health insurance industry used a faulty database that overcharged patients for seeing doctors outside their insurance network, costing Americans billions of dollars in inflated medical bills.

The flawed database is operated by Ingenix, a subsidiary of health insurer UnitedHealth Group, which agreed in January to pay $350 million to settle allegations that it deliberately kept rates low to underpay doctors, driving up expenses for patients.

An investigation by Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., shows that nearly 20 regional and national insurers also used Ingenix data. An ongoing probe by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo previously focused on the use of Ingenix data by only a handful of top insurers, including Aetna, Wellpoint and Cigna. About a dozen insurers, including UnitedHealth, have already reached settlements with Cuomo.

Tuesday's report arrives as President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress step up calls for a public health care option. The idea is vigorously opposed by Republicans and insurance industry executives, who say a public plan would drive private companies out of the marketplace.

More than 100 million Americans have plans that allow them to see doctors who are not part of their insurance network. For more than a decade, insurers submitted data to Ingenix to determine the typical cost for care received outside their networks.

But congressional investigators say companies would deliberately skew data to underestimate the costs of medical services, leaving patients to pay more in out-of-pocket expenses.

"The result of this practice is that American consumers have paid billions of dollars for health care services that their insurance companies should have paid," states the report from the Senate Commerce Committee's investigative staff.

In one case, Aetna allegedly eliminated the highest 20 percent of medical charges before sending the data to Ingenix, according to expert court testimony cited by congressional investigators. Once the data was handed over to Ingenix, officials there "scrubbed" the numbers again to further curb charges, according to the testimony.

Aetna denied the allegations in a statement Wednesday, saying they stem from a lawsuit against another insurance company. Aetna was not party to the case.

A Senate Commerce Committee spokesman stood behind the report's statements, saying they stem from evidence given under oath by Aetna in a court proceeding.

UnitedHealth has admitted no wrongdoing in its handling of Ingenix, though it agreed to close the database and help fund a new one operated by a nonprofit group.

Rockefeller and other lawmakers are pushing for additional changes in the insurance marketplace. A bill from the West Virginia senator, who chairs the Commerce Committee, would compel companies to use simple, standardized language to describe insurance policies.

"Consumers can't challenge insurance company decisions because the companies don't explain terms of coverage in understandable language — I would say deliberately," said Sen. Rockefeller, at a hearing Tuesday.

Former insurance executive Wendell Potter told lawmakers that companies deliberately use difficult language to mislead consumers about the scope of their benefits.

"Insurers know that policyholders are so baffled by those notices they usually just ignore them or throw them away," said Potter, a former Cigna executive. "And that's exactly the point. If they were more understandable, more consumers might realize that they are being ripped off."

Potter urged senators to pass the public health plan proposed by Obama, saying it would bring more transparency and higher quality to the health insurance industry.

Source: AP News

Obama Science Memo Goes Beyond Stem Cells

A real reason for hope...more than just a campaign promise...



WASHINGTON — From tiny embryonic cells to the large-scale physics of global warming, President Barack Obama urged researchers on Monday to follow science and not ideology as he abolished contentious Bush-era restraints on stem-cell research. "Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values," Obama declared as he signed documents changing U.S. science policy and removing what some researchers have said were shackles on their work.

"It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda _ and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology," Obama said.

Researchers said the new president's message was clear: Science, which once propelled men to the moon, again matters in American life.

Opponents saw it differently: a defeat for morality in the most basic questions of life and death.

"The action by the president today will, in effect, allow scientists to create their own guidelines without proper moral restraints," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said.

In a crowded ornate East Room, there were more scientists in the White House than Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science had seen in his 30 years in Washington. "More happy scientists than I've seen," he added.

The most immediate effect will allow federally funded researchers to use hundreds of new embryonic stem cell lines for promising, but still long-range research in hopes of creating better treatments, possibly even cures, for conditions ranging from diabetes to paralysis. Until now, those researchers had to limit themselves to just 21 stem cell lines created before August 2001, when President George W. Bush limited funding because of "fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science."

Science, politics and religion have long intertwined and conflicted with each other. In his actions Monday, especially with the stem cell decision, Obama is emphasizing more the science than the religion, when compared with his predecessor, science policy experts say. But they acknowledged politics is still involved.

Don't expect stem cell cures or treatments anytime soon. One company this summer will begin the world's first study of a treatment using human embryonic stem cells, in people who recently suffered spinal cord injuries. Research institutions on Monday were gearing up to ask for more freely flowing federal money, and the National Institutes of Health was creating guidelines on how to hand it out and include ethical constraints. It will be months before the stem cell money flows; the average NIH stem cell grant is $1.5 million spread out over four years.

Scientists focused on a new sense of freedom.

"I think patients everywhere will be cheering us on, imploring us to work faster, harder and with all of our ability to find new treatments," said Harvard Stem Cell Institute co-director Doug Melton, father of two children with Type I diabetes who could possibly be treated with stem cells. "On a personal level, it is an enormous relief and a time for celebration. ... Science thrives when there is an open and collaborative exchange, not when there are artificial barriers, silos, constructed by the government."

Opponents framed their opposition mostly, but not exclusively, on moral grounds and the scientifically contested claims that adult stem cells work just as well.

Said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America: "President Obama's order places the worst kind of politics above ethics. Politics driven by hype makes overblown promises, fuels the desperation of the suffering and financially benefits those seeking to strip morality from science."

In Congress, Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Mike Castle, R-Del., said they would seek a quick vote on legislation to codify Obama's order in federal law, after failing twice in the past to overturn Bush's restrictions. DeGette said she doesn't want stem cell research to become "a pingpong ball going back and forth between administrations."

But Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the Republican study committee, said the president's new policy would "force taxpayers to subsidize research that will destroy human embryos." De Gette and Castle said their legislation tries to minimize destruction of embryos.

Stem cells are typically derived from fertility clinic surplus, destined for destruction.

Obama also said the stem cell policy is designed so that it "never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction." Such cloning, he said, "is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society or any society."

In addition to the stem cell order, Obama issued a memo designed to ensure openness about scientific research and give whistleblower protection to scientists.

Promoting science "is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient _ especially when it's inconvenient," Obama said.

Science and politics often conflict, said Granger Morgan, professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and a former science advisory board chairman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency _ perhaps illustrated no more wildly than in 1897 when the Indiana legislature attempted to change the mathematical concept of pi to 3.2. Science should provide the facts that politicians use for their decisions, Morgan and Leshner said.

Many scientists and environmental activists complained that the Bush administration had censored and marginalized science. That's a perception that Bush science adviser John Marburger repeatedly called untrue and unfair, as he addressed a series of occurrences that troubled critics.

In 2006, the White House edited out congressional testimony about public health effects of global warming by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding. A 2003 EPA global warming document was edited by nonscientists at the White House. A NASA political appointee tried _ and failed _ to silence the agency's top climate scientist.

Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona resigned in 2006, complaining about White House interference on global health issues: "The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds."

Obama advisers contend that all has changed. The government has already put on hold rules about scientific input on endangered species, reinstating advice that had been excised during the Bush administration.

Public policy must "be guided by sound scientific advice," said Dr. Harold Varmus, the Nobel Prize-winning co-chairman of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The new memo Obama signed is "mainly a way of trying to prevent tampering with any advice," Varmus told MSNBC.
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Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

Barak Obama Addresses Congress

A speech not to be missed!

Ban On Media Coverage Of Military Coffins Revisited

by Don Gonyea

Flag-draped coffins of U.S. casualties from Iraq are unloaded from a plane by a military honor guard
Enlarge

Flag-draped coffins of U.S. casualties from Iraq are offloaded from a plane by an honor guard in Dover, Del., in this undated Air Force handout photo from www.thememoryhole.org. A policy against media coverage of such ceremonies has been in place since 1991, but President Obama has said it's under review. www.thememoryhole.org via Getty Images



All Things Considered, February 11, 2009 · A longtime Pentagon policy bars the media from covering the arrival of coffins carrying the military's dead. But that may change under the Obama administration.

The military has argued that the ban protects the privacy of families, but critics counter that it shields Americans from the true cost of war.

The scene has played out thousands of times since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: A plane lands at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and one by one, flag-draped coffins are carried from the cargo hold by soldiers in full dress uniform. The ceremony is somber and moving. But there is also controversy.

The policy against media coverage has been in place since the Gulf War in 1991. Opponents of the Iraq war accused President George W. Bush of keeping the cameras away from Dover for political reasons. In 2004, Joe Biden, now vice president, was the U.S. senator from Delaware. At the time, he called it shameful that soldiers' remains were being "snuck back into the country under the cover of night."

At a news conference Monday night, President Obama was asked whether he'll change the policy.

"Your question is timely," Obama said. "We got reports that four American service members have been killed in Iraq today. And, you know, obviously, our thoughts and prayers go out to the families."

He added that the weight of the presidency hits home when he signs letters to the families of fallen heroes. He added that the policy is under review and that he shouldn't comment further.

A day later, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, noted that he first considered changing the policy a year ago but was discouraged from doing so by the Bush White House. The concern, he said, was privacy — and that some families would feel compelled to be at Dover for the return of their loved ones.

"For some families, this would delay the return of the remains home. For others, it would be a financial hardship to get to Dover," Gates said.

But he also said the policy is worth reviewing to see whether the needs of families can be met.

John Ellsworth, whose son died in Iraq in 2004, heads a group called Military Families United. He said families have many different opinions on the policy. But if it is changed, he said, families will have a choice. Some would welcome cameras, wanting the world to see.

"On the other hand, some folks don't want to share that. It's too hard for them," Ellsworth said.

At the University of Delaware, professor Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent, has fought unsuccessfully in the courts for the release of government photos taken at Dover. He says it's an important element of the story of any war.

"What I'm about to say, I say with the fullest respect of the family members who have made that sacrifice by giving up their family members," Begleiter said. "I would say the people who die make that sacrifice not solely for the families but also for the nation. So it's not just a matter of privacy for the families. It's a matter of national grieving."

Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has been willing to say how long it will take to review and possibly reverse the policy banning media coverage at Dover Air Force Base.

Making Up is Hard To Do

USA: "uh...hello?

DEMOCRACY: "Yeah? I told you never to call here again!

USA: "I know...I know...but please just here me out."

DEMOCRACY: "You have a lot of nerve after everything you've done to me"

USA: "Honey I know but things are different now. I promise things have changed. I've changed. Just...please for old time sake give me another chance. We've been through a lot you and I...remember.."

DEMOCRACY: "Yes of course but that's the problem"

USA: "Ah come on...there have been some good times. I know things have been bad between us the last eight years or so...but what about all the good times? I mean where would we be without each other? There is no me without you...and no you without me. We were made for each other...babe I am not whole without you...I am but a mere shell of my former self...I need you...and I think you need me too."

DEMOCRACY: "...well...yeah...we have had some amazing adventures together...and I am willing to admit we are stronger together...we are are best selves when we are working as one. But...I can't be hurt again...I mean I just couldn't take it again...how can I ever trust you again after what has happened these past eight years? The heart of me is strong but fragile. Why should I give you another chance?"

USA: "I know I've hurt you...but hon I've hurt myself too. Just take a moment and step outside...I'll wait...take a deep breathe...can't you feel it? Can't you we are different?"

DEMOCRACY: "...wow...yes I'll admit it...I can feel a change in the air...but I have heard that before. What if you are just saying what I want to hear?"

USA: "I understand. Let my actions speak what my heart feels. Just watch this video and I know you will give me another chance."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

DEMOCRACY: "Okay...I'm in...but I'll be watching you. Please remember I am strong but am fragile and I need real truth and real justice to keep me alive. But I can see you deserve another chance. Plus truth be told...I miss you too."

USA: "...thank you."

DEMOCRACY: "You're welcome."

USA: "and babe... I Love You."

DEMOCRACY: "...sigh...I Love you too."

USA: "Welcome back."

DEMOCRACY: "Thank you. I am happy to be back."

USA: "I know."

DEMOCRACY: "Just keep your promises."

"WE REJECT THE CHOICE BETWEEN OUR SAFETY AND OUR IDEALS"

"Let us mark this day with remembrance"

Their is a palpable feel to the air of time that words clumsily try to describe... for now only breathe in the feeling today shares with our heart and mind.

With gauntlet thrown it is now all of ours to pick up. As always, we must first begin with the self before we can become the world...the people... we hope for.

As extraordinary as this moment in time is...and it is so cherish... carry the feelings of today into your everyday. Each step taken must hold onto a piece of now.

Take nothing for granted...take no one for granted...including yourself. Give the gift of giving of self to yourself and spread love through your person and into the next.

Action...memory...equality...care...justice and service called...these are but a few things that should carry us towards our continuing path.

the spring of hope has bloomed, now it is up to us all to continue the watering....

Keith Olbermann - 8 years in 8 minutes

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so much damage...so much to do...good luck President Obama

Six Days Seven Nights By Jon Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Six Days Seven Nights

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

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when writers block strikes take two jon stewart videos and post me in the morning....

don't fret frettin'

when wonders cease ...
blink
and the magic will renew
remember to believe
in the worlds possibilities
remember when low
to believe in the self
even when..... especially
when things seem their worst
express yourself
both the good and the bad
don't hide from things
don't hide from the self
still writin' write
don't worry
when worrying
don't fret
when fretting
smooth out all your
rough edges
smooth out all the
rough edges of
your mind
freedom comes
freedom is
and freedom's just
another word for
nothing left to loose

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just a little HAPPY NEW YEARS at ya!

sweet dreams 2008
hallelujah you finally made it to the party 2009

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