They Really Dropped the Ball..

[strandinthewind]

I was mentioning this earlier to a friend here - the new deal seems now to be that private insurers are refusing to even look up insureds by their names. They are instead claiming that they can no longer do that and instead need like three kinds of proof from the insured. When my friend in NOLA explained that they did not have this because of the Hurricane, the ins. company was like - sorry have a nice day. Let's just put it this way - that woman is now probably limping as my friend is a HUGE trial lawyer with connections But, imagine the peeps without that advantage or the wherewithal to tel them to piss off, etc.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by Nixxxed

Just read it. And then read it again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/

Excerpt:

HOW BUSH BLEW IT

By Evan Thomas
Newsweek

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

...

This is a great article. Thanks!

[amber]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I was mentioning this earlier to a friend here - the new deal seems now to be that private insurers are refusing to even look up insureds by their names. They are instead claiming that they can no longer do that and instead need like three kinds of proof from the insured. When my friend in NOLA explained that they did not have this because of the Hurricane, the ins. company was like - sorry have a nice day. Let's just put it this way - that woman is now probably limping as my friend is a HUGE trial lawyer with connections But, imagine the peeps without that advantage or the
wherewithal to tel them to piss off, etc.

So...they're trying to avoid paying by using beaurocratic hurdles?

It's...pretty hard to believe that an insurance company can't look up someone by name.
It's absurd to be that strict about identification.

[strandinthewind]

They gave my friend such grief about it and then refused to open a claim. That is rank BS IMO. The media better not get a hold of that.

[macfanken]

Baltimore Sun editorial...


WASHINGTON - The disastrous federal response to Katrina exposes a record of incompetence, misjudgment and ideological blinders that should lead to serious doubts that the Bush administration should be allowed to continue in office.

When taxpayers have raised, borrowed and spent $40 billion to $50 billion a year for the past four years for homeland security but the officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot find their own hands in broad daylight for four days while New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast swelter, drown and die, it is time for them to go.

When funding for water works and levees in the gulf region is repeatedly cut by an administration that seems determined to undermine the public responsibility for infrastructure in America, despite clear warnings that the infrastructure could not survive a major storm, it seems clear someone is playing politics with the public trust.

When rescue and medical squads are sitting in Manassas and elsewhere in northern Virginia and foreign assistance waits at airports because the government can't figure out how to insure the workers, how to use the assistance or which jurisdiction should be in charge, it is time for the administration to leave town.

When President Bush stays on vacation and attends social functions for two days in the face of disaster before finally understanding that people are starving, crying out and dying, it is time for him to go.

When FEMA officials cannot figure out that there are thousands stranded at the New Orleans convention center - where people died and were starving - and fussed ineffectively about the same problems in the Superdome, they should be fired, not praised, as the president praised FEMA Director Michael Brown in New Orleans last week.

When Mr. Bush states publicly that "nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee" while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane Katrina passed over, he should be laughed out of town as an impostor.

When repeated studies of New Orleans make it clear that tens of thousands of people would be unable to evacuate the city in case of a flood, lacking both money and transportation, but FEMA makes no effort before the storm to commandeer buses and move them to safety, it is time for someone to be given his walking papers.

When the president makes Sen. Trent Lott's house in Pascagoula, Miss., the poster child for rebuilding while hundreds of thousands are bereft of housing, jobs, electricity and security, he betrays a careless insensitivity that should banish him from office.

When the president of the United States points the finger away from the lame response of his administration to Katrina and tries to finger local officials in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., as the culprits, he betrays the unwillingness of this administration to speak truth and hold itself accountable. As in the case of the miserable execution of policy in Iraq, Mr. Bush and Karl Rove always have some excuse for failure other than their own misjudgments.

We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of government with expensive baloney.

They rode into office in a highly contested election, spouting a message of bipartisanship but determined to undermine the federal government in every way but defense (and, after 9/11, one presumed, homeland security). One with Grover Norquist, they were determined to shrink Washington until it was "small enough to drown in a bathtub." Katrina has stripped the veil from this mean-spirited strategy, exposing the greed, mindlessness and sheer profiteering behind it.

It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by amber

So...they're trying to avoid paying by using beaurocratic hurdles?

They're just trying to avoid paying.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

They're just trying to avoid paying.

You heard what Rep. Baker from Baton Rouge said?

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

[Mari]

It's certainly vile, but come on. I'm not that surprised. Believe it or not, but they don't have the money for it. At least that's how I understand it. Same thing happened here with damages from natural disasters.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by dissention

You heard what Rep. Baker from Baton Rouge said?

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Yes, I heard this, but I forgot who said it. Bastard. Also, Bush put something through to lower the wages workers will get doing the rebuilding. WTF??? Those workers will be the ones who lost everything and he wants to cut wages? Hopefully it will not pass through congress.

[wondergirl9847]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

the new deal seems now to be that private insurers are refusing to even look up insureds by their names. They are instead claiming that they can no longer do that and instead need like three kinds of proof from the insured. When my friend in NOLA explained that they did not have this because of the Hurricane, the ins. company was like - sorry have a nice day.

This makes my blood boil! What if this were YOU, would YOU want someone telling YOU that YOU cannot have YOUR insurance money, because YOU don't have proof of it?!?!?!! 3 kinds of proof?!!?!??!

I knew this type of sh*t would happen.

[estranged4life]

Originally Posted by dissention

Meh, they have Coultergeist, we have Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz, and Mike Malloy.

neither have/nor need anyone other than our own thoughts and opinions...

Though we agree with the Democrats that this presidency is a joke.

Brian "I was always skeptical of what our government always told us until April 19,1995...Now I believe NOTHING the US government EVER says" j.

[Nixxxed]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

Yes, I heard this, but I forgot who said it. Bastard. Also, Bush put something through to lower the wages workers will get doing the rebuilding. WTF??? Those workers will be the ones who lost everything and he wants to cut wages? Hopefully it will not pass through congress.

It was by Executive Order. I don't think Congress has a choice. I'll try to find you the info...

[Nixxxed]

Originally Posted by Nixxxed

It was by Executive Order. I don't think Congress has a choice. I'll try to find you the info...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050908-5.html

[Mari]

Originally Posted by wondergirl9847

This makes my blood boil! What if this were YOU, would YOU want someone telling YOU that YOU cannot have YOUR insurance money, because YOU don't have proof of it?!?!?!! 3 kinds of proof?!!?!??!

I knew this type of sh*t would happen.

I think I'd try to kill someone if they told me that!

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by Nixxxed

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050908-5.html

The language of that is confusing. Maybe he should issue an executive order barring profiteering from these folks' hell.