(no subject)

It is through a combination of personal experience with them and through stories like this one that I have come to the conclusion that everyone in the corporate division of Aetna needs to be put up against the wall and shot, and everyone in claims denial division needs to die slowly and painfully from conditions that would be treatable if it weren't for lack of health insurance. For some reason when I say that, people keep thinking that I mean as hyperbolic expression of my outrage--let me assure you that I believe this very literally. You know how for state executions they have several people pressing the button so that no one really knows who did the killing? For chairman and CEO Ron Williams I'd be totally happy to be the sole button-pusher.

Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.

In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010. The insurance giant predicted that the company would subsequently lose between 300,000 and 350,000 members next year from its national account as well as another 300,000 from smaller group accounts.

"The pricing we put in place for 2009 turned out to not really be what we needed to achieve the results and margins that we had historically been delivering," said chairman and CEO Ron Williams. "We view 2010 as a repositioning year, a year that does not fully reflect the earnings potential of our business. Our pricing actions should have a noticeable effect beginning in the first quarter of 2010, with additional financial impact realized during the remaining three quarters of the year."

And this reads so much like an Onion article that I had to double-check twice to make sure it was a "real" news article (what is "real" news when reality is satire, I ask you?)

The nation’s biggest bank lobby sent Democratic leaders a letter Friday lashing out at credit unions for seeking to expand their lending authority to improve the economy.

In a lengthy letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), the American Bankers Association (ABA) urged lawmakers not to increase the amount of money credit unions may lend.

ABA and 56 state and regional bank lobbying associations said lawmakers should “oppose this unnecessary expansion of lending authority.”

The bank lobby’s effort comes after Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) urged Pelosi and House leaders to raise the business lending cap for credit union members from 12.25 percent to 25 percent.

Kanjorski argued an increase would lead credit unions to lend more to small businesses and create as many as 100,000 jobs. Kanjorski personally appealed for the change with President Barack Obama on Air Force One as the president visited Allentown, Pa.

The bank lobbies said the change “will only increase the risk exposure of credit unions” and “result in credit unions straying further from their traditional mission of serving customers, particularly those of modest means.”

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge Day 4

December 5 Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

Well the most amazing night, on all kinds of deep phenomenological levels was a certain evening in Norway (hard to say night when most of this night transpired under the summer arctic sun)--it is described in full detail in a locked entry from August, and I will leave it at that in this public entry...let's just say it involved shum_listvi, a tiny island in the middle of a fjord, and epic troll battles on the rock faces around us. Runners-up include the night in London when khalinche and I went to see "Arcadia" and then, on our walk afterwards, witnessed the full moon, positioned as the iris in the middle of the London Eye, and filled our bellies full with delicious Middle Eastern food, and the second night that kaecyy and Lea were here, when we wandered around Maastricht, and picnicked on the stone wall overlooking the river as the sun set, then indulged in delicious ice-cream at Luna Rossa, then they set off firecrackers in the backyard for the midnight that marked the start of my birthday--then a few hours later my coworker girlfriends arrived with the dilapidated food organ in tow, for my whim of garden decoration.