Healthcare scoring for the “dead pool”: hedge funds betting on how long you will live

Marti Oakley, Contributing Writer 
Activist Post

Those medical records that are now available to anyone and everyone who might have a financial interest in your “health” (the same records about you that you yourself can no longer gain access to in most cases),  are for sale to stakeholders, investors and interested parties.  Insurance companies are particularly interested.

As we stated in an earlier article, when Obamacare is implemented it will establish a health score to be applied to your records and updated with each doctor visit. This score will be available to insurance companies with the accompanying medical data that will allow them to determine how much of a risk you pose to the profits they anticipate by insuring you under a hedge fund.

You will be rated as to how much of a risk you represent to the system.  This score is being used to determine what and how much healthcare you are eligible to receive.  As the bill clearly states, panels will determine what risk you pose to the system and weigh that against the odds you can recover, and if you do, what would be the value of your future contributions to society?  Odds not good?  Off to the dead pool you go!
Enter the insurance companies. 
Your score on these medical records are being used to determine your eligibility to be entered into the “dead pool” being constructed by life insurance companies.  The dead pool is comprised of those in the healthcare system who have diseases such as ling cancer, breast cancer, leukemia, heart disease or any possible terminal, genetic or acquired illness.  Hedge funds are being established wherein investors in the fund are betting against you and how long you might live with the disease. The hedge fund is projecting your possible life expectancy and betting against you.

Life Insurance bundles 

“The solution? A bond made up of life settlements would ideally have policies from people with a range of diseases — leukemia, lung cancer, heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s. That is because if too many people with leukemia are in the securitization portfolio, and a cure is developed, the value of the bond would plummet.” 

This should effectively halt any real research into finding cures for many diseases.  Not that there is much of that actually occurring anyway, in my opinion.

This article from the New York times in 2009 shows these plans for dead pool investments are well underway.  Anything for a buck right? Even the morbid betting on how long you will live: 

Excerpted from the article:

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. 

Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

“We’re hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering,” said one investment banker not authorized to speak to the news media.

But if a policy is purchased and packaged into a security, investors will keep paying the premiums that might have been abandoned; as a result, more policies will stay in force, ensuring more payouts over time and less money for the insurance companies.”

*****

Well there you have it.  It isn’t about life, health or anything remotely moral or ethical.  Its about risk, profits and payouts.

“Some financial firms are moving to outpace their rivals. Credit Suisse (Goldman Sachs), for example, is in effect building a financial assembly line to buy large numbers of life insurance policies, package and resell them — just as Wall Street firms did with subprime securities.”

Just when I think the predator class can’t really stoop any lower, I come across something like this that lets me know there is no end to the greed, the callousness, the immoral or unethical behavior these sociopaths will engage in all in the name of profits.  As this last paragraph makes clear, Wall Street views betting on your life as no different than the mortgage fraud.

Of course I wonder if the hedge fund sinks too low, because, say for instance, people are outliving the risk predictions, what lengths will these predators go to, to increase their profits?  Apparently nothing is off limits and we already know they lack any kind of social morality.

Be careful what you tell your doctor.  Every word you utter is scored and that information and that score are provided to those who think you might be worth more dead than alive.

Seems to be some form of financial cannibalism.
 ______________________________
New Exotic Investments Emerging on Wall Street – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/06insurance.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&src=twt&twt=nytimesbusiness

Wall Street pins hope on Life insurance bundles
http://www.vosizneias.com/37901/2009/09/06/new-york-wall-street-pins-hopes-on-life-insurance-bundles/

Marti Oakley is a political activist and former op-ed columnist for the St Cloud Times in Minnesota. She was a member of the Times Writer’s Group until she resigned in September of 07. She is neither Democrat nor Republican, since neither party is representative of the American people. She says what she thinks, means what she says, and is known for being outspoken. She is hopeful that the American public will wake up to what is happening to our beloved country . . . little of it is left.  Her website is The PPJ Gazette

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