Governor Bredesen believes that profits are more important than people!

Read this and take ACTION! It is time to get engaged. NOW!

On Feb. 10, 2009, Governor Bredesen told the Wall Street Journal, "advocacy groups don't matter nearly as much as the pharmaceutical groups, the hospitals, the doctors' groups. There's a lot of very powerful interest groups that will play in this thing." Governor Bredesen was defending his TennCare cuts.

Action is needed: Email Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, at: Rahm_Emanuel@who.eop.gov

You need to email the White House today and tell President Obama how you, your friend, or family members were treated when you lost your TennCare. You need to do this for your country. Governor Bredesen has caused serious harm to thousands of people in the state of Tennessee. We don't want this happening to the country. Go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ You can also call, write, or fax President Obama:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Call: 202-456-1111 - Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461 - Faxes are better than mailing letters

The quote above tells the whole story. With Governor Bredesen as Secretary for Health and Human Services , this is what you would get:

• Insurance companies' profits before expanding coverage for people;
• Insurance companies' profits before care prescribed by your doctor;
• Insurance companies' profits before government regulations;
• Insurance companies' profits before consumer rights; and finally,
• Public relations companies telling you how good your care is, despite the fact that your insurance company is denying you care.

I am speaking from experience. During Bredesen's campaign for Governor, he promised that he could manage TennCare and that cuts were not necessary. After he became Governor, he systematically cut eligibility for close to 300,000 adults between 2005 and 2008. For adults left on the program, year after year, he has cut benefits, and protections. For children, the kids under CoverKids have poor dental benefits and no vision care.

Over the last 3 years of cuts, he has shifted costs to families, forced many into bankruptcy (some have died), shifted care to county and local government, hospitals, or people who have insurance. He worked to reduce government regulations and protections and is a master at spin.

Action is needed: Email Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, at: Rahm_Emanuel@who.eop.gov

You need to email the White House today and tell President Obama how you, your friend, or family members were treated when you lost your TennCare. You need to do this for your country. Governor Bredesen has caused serious harm to thousands of people. We don't want him doing this to the country. Go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

You can also call, write, or fax President Obama:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Call: 202-456-1111 - Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461 - Faxes are better than mailing letters

Are you scratching you head and asking why Governor Bredesen is even on the short list? Scratch some more.

Here is what he said in a Washington Post article in January of 2005 about a TennCare enrollee:

In a Washington Post interview, UNPROMTED, Governor Bredesen called a TennCare enrollee out by name and publicly denigrated her: "Bredesen identified her as a "poster child" for liberal advocates and the media. He denigrated Smith, and many of the 30,000 TennCare clients deemed "uninsurable," for making "lifestyle choices" to work for small businesses that do not offer insurance rather than finding jobs with the state or large companies that do. Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16471-2005Jan17.html

Another public remark printed in the Tennessee Journal: State employees were told (by Gov. Bredesen) that they would spend the rest of their lives “filling potholes” if they talked with anyone outside of state government about the (TennCare Cuts) proposals. Tennessee Journal, 7/5/04.

Seven reasons why Phil Bredesen is NOT the person for HHS Secretary or for America. Feel free to use any of these reasons to call, right, email, and fax your comments:

Although Mr. Bredesen talks a good game and is certainly a smart politician, he has shown time and time again that the only thing he is truly concerned with is balancing the state budget. If in balancing the budget, the sickest, poorest, and most vulnerable Tennesseans lose their health care, he quickly blames enrollees rather than his management.

1. Uninsured numbers have increased under Bredesen’s watch. When Bredesen became governor, about 1 in 8 Tennesseans were uninsured. Into his second term, about 1 in 6 are uninsured. Tennessee also ranks #1 in personal bankruptcies, half of which are related to medical debt.
2. Bredesen doesn't like the federal government. He has openly sneered at the federal government and the Center on Medicare and Medicaid Services, whining that there may be a string or two attached with the millions of dollars Tennessee gets or could get to help cover its one million uninsured. In fact, he proudly cut people from the state’s Medicaid program, stating he would devise state-only-funded alternative, giving up hundreds of millions federal matching dollars so that he does not have to comply with federal rules which protect people's health.
3. Bredesen’s ideas for coverage aren’t working. He has devised a set of health care products, cleverly called Cover Tennessee. Trouble is the programs cover few Tennesseans.
• The so-called Cover TN for low-wage workers of small businesses is entering its third year and to date is “covering” less than 18,000 of Tennessee’s nearly one million uninsured. Bredesen likes to say of the program: "something is better than nothing". Apparently, sensible Tennesseans disagree, understanding this pretend, limited, insurance offers little in way of health and financial security compared to its costs.
• In 2007, Advocates had to push the governor to add dental and vision benefits to CoverKids (SCHIP), like every other state has. But, to date, the state has not made good on its promise to add vision care. And, more than 50,000 kids who are eligible for the program are still not enrolled.
• AccessTN, the state’s new high-risk pool has enrolled less than 5,000 people because it remains too expensive for most Tennesseans.
4. Bredesen broke his campaign promise. He ran for governor of Tennessee in 2002, promising that he would fix Tenncare through better management of the program, including reining in the managed care organizations. His opponent openly said he would cut hundreds of thousands of people and return to Medicaid. As it is today, Tennessee has returned to Medicaid under Bredesen's watch and its program is the most restrictive Medicaid program in the country.
5. Bredesen cut the largest number of Medicaid enrollees, ever. In 2005, Bredesen stripped nearly 200,000 medically fragile adults from Medicaid/Tenncare, creating the single largest one time cut of the uninsured in our nation’s history.
6. Bredesen protects MCO profiteers and sees enrollees as the problem. Bredesen continues to insist that the cuts had to happen because TennCare was bankrupting the state. The truth is, the state was mis-managing the program, not willing to use Drug Utilization Review or to put managed care companies back on risk (sound management principles that health care advocates had been calling for in lieu of Draconian cuts. These management programs were only implemented after not before Bredesen made the cuts.
7. Bredesen plays a shell game. The thousands of very sick people who were cut from TennCare did not go away . The medically fragile uninsured had to turn to already financially burdened local government, free clinics and hospitals to get some care. Bredesen simply balanced the state’s ledger page by shifting the costs to families, local governments, hospitals, and county jails. The data that explains this comes Tennessee’s own Comptroller’s office, http://www.thcc2.org/index_folder/financing_healthcare_07.pdf

Action is needed: Email Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, at: Rahm_Emanuel@who.eop.gov

You need to email the White House today and tell President Obama how you, your friend, or family members were treated when you lost your TennCare. You need to do this for your country. Governor Bredesen has caused serious harm to thousands of people. We don't want him doing this to the country. Go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

You can also call, write, or fax President Obama:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Call: 202-456-1111 - Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461 - Faxes are better than mailing letters