Private Insurance, CIGNA included, is Bad for Our Health
by
Watchdog | 06.13.2008
CIGNA health insurance, like the other private insurers, is a Big Time investor in Wall Street firms that many do not know about, and that many would not care to even indirectly provide investment revenues. So, where does CIGNA invest? Single Payer solves this big problem.
Here's one hit on SEC (Securities & Exchange
Commission) info about Philly's fine "health" insurer, CIGNA, and its investments in some quite non-healthy industries.
http://www.secinfo.com/dPAYs.89.htm
Coca Cola, one of CIGNA's under-reported investment
properties, has been indicted for assassinating union
organizers in Columbia...not to mention the health
effects of Coke.
Wasn't Allied Signal THE top corporate polluter in
Philly not long ago? (What firm is top-of-the-list
now?)
Monsanto...what can you say? Is there a more eco- and
health-threatening industry on earth? From Agent
Orange on to Patented plants and terminator seeds and
the rest.... How'd Monsanto keep its business license?
Disney...source of so much of our corporatized "news"
(the ABC-D network) and "family" entertainments.
Philip Morris. Say no more. Google "Fauxbacco" for
more than most want to know.
Amoco...contributing fine, profitable, though deadly,
fuel emissions into the lungs of millions, some of
them customers of one of Amoco's owners, CIGNA.
That info is from 1996, and current info is oddly
hard to find (so far), but...question is, has CIGNA
paid a dime in compensation to victims of its
properties?
Has CIGNA divested from them or their ilk? Can a
Private Health Insurer EXIST w/out investing in Wall
Street's worst environmental and health damaging
industries? All who vote, or voted, for THAT, raise
their hands. All who KNEW about it.....same thing.
A more interesting question perhaps is..why haven't
Philly area health activists ASKED CIGNA to
divest...and to pay compensation to their properties'
victims? We have to pay if someone slips on our
sidewalk and bangs their knee...but CIGNA? Can the
deaths even be counted, with industry-funded
"researchers" doing the counting?
We have a Right To Know just what our Health Insurer is, especially regarding the other industries to which it is economically linked. We are not told up front, or even advised that one can find the info on their own, with some difficulty, at the Securities & Exchange Commission.
And here's another hit, more recent info....
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/830035/000114544305001288/0001145443-05-001288.txt
So, we got, in 2001 anyway, CIGNA (a purported HEALTH
insurer) invested in Military Contractors like Boeing,
Raytheon, Lockheed, General Dynamics, Rockwell,
Northrup Grumman, et ilk. How many Anti War
activists who can afford private insurance unknowingly
contribute funds via their premiums that go to invest
in the war industries?
Do CIGNA patrons know of their links to, and indirect
investment support of, Exxon? Wal-Mart? GE?
(Those with Anti War or Environmental interests might
spread news about and join in June 19 noon
demonstration against CIGNA and private health
insurers...in Philly at Two Liberty Place, 16th and
Chestnut, Thursday,
June 19, 12 noon. This isn't JUST about Single Payer
and health care, per se.)
CIGNA's invests in the likes of Monsanto, ADM, Altria (Philip
Morris), and Reynolds American (more cigarettes) and
etc.
We fing big investments in Pharmaceuticals...a brazen
Conflict of Interest. Will CIGNA's pool of health care
providers ever recommend competing drugs that are
safer, more effective, or cheaper than CIGNA's
investment properties' drugs? Will questions about safety or effectiveness of drugs from CIGNA properties be given less attention?
Plus, we find Dow, DuPont, Great Lakes, Rohm & Haas,
and other chem firms...which just happen to be, among
other things, pesticide suppliers to the Cigaratte
industry....and to lungs of unwitting, unprotected
millions of human beings. Should we buy Private
Insurance to protect ourselves from medical costs
caused by properties OWNED by those Insurers?
On June 19 Day of Protest at CIGNA HQ in Philly and other supposed "health" insurers state wide and nationally, the question needs to be asked about their
investment properties. Have they divested? WILL they divest? When will they compensate victims of their properties? Etc.
We can also ask if they will up-front INFORM their
customers about just where so much of that money goes,
and which industries CIGNA is in bed with. Is there a
chance in hell that CIGNA will insist that doctors
linked to their Health Management business will check
patients for Body Burdens of Dow, DuPont, Rohm/Haas,
Monsanto, etc chemicals etc?
This issue must be raised in Presidential Campaign
becasue McCain seems to support Bizness as Usual, and
Obama supports forcing parent to patronize such
insurers for their kids' care. Swell. Single Payer
promoters are "off the table", to use the Pelosi term.
Will post up-to-date 2008 or 2007 info IF it's
findable. The SEC info is supposed to be public
info...though they don't make it easy.
If anyone finds any good info, DO copy it. You never
know how much longer Inconvenient Info may be posted
on-line. A lot's missing already.
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Comments
Isn't that the truth. The
Submitted by Build Good Credit (not verified) on Wed, 12/31/2008 - 4:27pmIsn't that the truth. The world would be a lot better if the corporations had the same morality as individuals.
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