Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: For profit insurance has an incentive to betray people after disasters!

It's hard to imagine that this would even happen once; however it has, or something close to it, as described in the following article and even though this is unlikely to happen to many more people insurance fraud is bound to impact almost everyone, either directly or indirectly:

Couple sue after insurance agent tells police their hibiscus plants were pot 11/18/2017

SARVER, Pa. (AP) -- A couple who say they were handcuffed for hours in a police patrol car after their hibiscus plants were confused for marijuana are suing the police and an insurance company.

Edward and Audrey Cramer say in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that a Nationwide Insurance Co. agent investigating a fallen tree at their Buffalo Township home sent photos of their flowering plant to police. The lawsuit alleges that Buffalo Township police officers with assault rifles went to their home on Oct. 7 to investigate.

Audrey Cramer, 66, said she was partially dressed when she went to the door and police would not let her put on pants before she was handcuffed.

"I was not treated as though I was a human being," she said. "I was just something they were going to push aside."

Edward Cramer, 69, said he returned home a half-hour later to find his wife in the back of a police cruiser and officers pointing guns at him. He also was placed in the cruiser despite trying to convince the officers the plants were hibiscus, not marijuana. "They actually ignored me," he said. "They wouldn't even listen. I said, 'I can show you pictures on the internet.'"

The Cramers eventually were released without charges. They are seeking monetary and compensatory damages and court costs. Complete article

For profit insurance is one of the biggest scams if not the biggest, in the economic system. They spend an enormous amount of money from your premium dollars on advertising, commissions, lobbying, and many other bureaucratic expenses; and a large portion of these expenses are designed, not to improve service, but to increase profits which are also subtracted from the amount of money they pay out on claims!

They never mention this in the advertisements you see on TV!

Instead they keep repeating claims that you can "save" money by switching from this company to that; which can't possibly be true for all of them; and if they're spending all that money on advertising as the way they compete with each other it can't be true for any of them!

Insurance companies spend an enormous amount of the money they collect in insurance premiums on advertising that provides no information that helps consumers make informed decisions; instead it drains the money available for claims! And on top of that they spend an enormous amount on lobbying and financing campaigns so neither the media or the political establishment has an incentive to inform the majority of the public about how effective single payer is in other countries.

If the public is going to find out about the basic fundamentals of insurance they have to find out about it at the grassroots level or from alternative media outlets, which many of them are doing; which is why there is an enormous amount of support for single payer despite the lack of information provided by the most powerful institutions in the country!

Another thing the media practically never tells you is that after disasters like Hurricane Harvey, Katrina, Andrew etc., if you Google any given disaster and lawsuit against insurance companies you'll find an enormous number of people that thought they were covered but couldn't collect! There are plenty of lawyers, aware of this, like the following that are offering to help collect, but they'll want their cut too:

Homeowners Facing Denied Claims After Hurricane Harvey 08/29/2017

As Harvey dumps trillions of gallons of water on Houston, leaving homes and belongings permanently destroyed, we’re sorry to report that our neighbors and communities may be facing another disaster—a flurry of insurance companies that refuse to honor their policies. Dan Karr, the founder of a company that creates reports on insurance providers, believes that the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey will soon mirror the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina.

The Ghost of Katrina Continues to Haunt the Gulf

In 2006, hundreds of destitute homeowners on the Gulf Coast filed lawsuits against insurance companies who denied claims after Katrina. The core issue was whether or not a client’s home was destroyed by floodwaters or by wind. Complete article

One of the most fundamental principles of propaganda is that if you repeat a lie often enough and suppress the truth or relegate it to the fringes then the majority of the public will believe it; and this is exactly what the insurance companies and the media are doing to preserve the for profit insurance industry!

They never explain the most basic principles of insurance, or pooled risk, to the public, instead giving them an enormous amount of hype.

Insurance is pooled risk where everyone puts a modest amount of money into a fund that is saved for a disaster; and when someone has problems they can draw from that fund for an emergency. There are always some administrative costs but if it is only used when necessary and they provide full disclosure there is a much better chance of minimizing that.

"Socialized" insurance doesn't guarantee that this is minimized; however if it is accompanied by full disclosure than it has a much better chance of accomplishing this than for profit insurance, especially if they can keep almost all of their activities secret due to proprietary information laws, which is a fancy way of saying they're carrying out a conspiracy to confuse the public with sophisticated language. There are plenty of reports in foreign media about their own insurance systems, and although they may not be perfect they work much better than ours and if the media, or alternative media reported on it then we could do as good as them, or if they provide full disclosure and fix what ever mistakes they might have, even better!

Another thing they never tell us is that, with Climate Change escalating, there are a growing number of storms which leads to more claims than they can pay out so they might be looking for ways to cut corners to keep their profits up. Stories about people being terrorized because their insurance company sent police information about possible drugs, that could conceivably save them from paying claims, might be rare but it is inevitable that much more problems come about one way or another, and the insurance industry has to be aware of it! One insurance company has tried to put the best spin on this and appear as if they're taking a moral stance according to, Insurance giant Axa dumps investments in tar sands pipelines 12/12/2017 As far as for profit insurance goes this might be as good as it gets and in the short term if we can't convert to a Single Payer system right away, some people might want to give them preferential treatment; however that won't be good enough in the long term.

The majority of insurance companies and the mainstream media, which hardly reported this story, especially on television where most people get their news are still trying to prop up the same broken system and convince people the solution to their problem is to buy more insurance without much if any prevention, which means that insurance has already turned into a Ponzi Scheme that is inevitably going to collapse!

There are, of course an enormous number of stories about crimes, including murder, arson, and other fraudulent schemes that are encouraged by insurance as well including Murdered woman's kids, not husband who killed her, must get her $500K in life insurance, U.S. judge says 12/18/2017 where a judge has ordered insurance companies to pay out even though the victim appears to have been murdered, even though it isn't to the heirs that carried out the murder. As I reported previously in articles listed below this is just one example of times where money from insurance was used to pay out claims even when it was a result of crime committed for insurance purposes; and these are just the ones that were exposed! There's no way of knowing how many cases there were that weren't exposed and if they expose them after the fact they can rarely ever get more than a fraction of the money back.

This can be minimized by reasonable regulation that is designed to minimize incentive fro fraud including banning full coverage or buying more insurance than people absolutely need. In a Single Payer system it might all be automatic and it is unlikely that it would pay out as much for damages as people lose in a disaster but that would only encourage prevention which is what people should focus on in the first place. Instead of buying more insurance it would be better to minimize dangers to health by eating healthy and exercising driving safe, making homes safer from fire, etcetera covering any given field.

There's little or no chance that people within the political establishment are going to allow major reforms if they have any choice; however with a growing number of people recognizing how corrupt the traditional media is, if enough go to alternative media outlets for their information and elect alternative candidate the media tries to ignore then we can eventually push for single payer minimizing the waste from insurance.

If other countries can do it so can we, as long as people take their heads out of the sand!