The health insurers were engaged in a criminal scam and the Ombudsman was actively helping them. They thought they could make me go away by paying us $8,623.00 that the law had always said we were entitled to.
I was not for sale. I decided I needed to forcibly shove some broom sticks up some corporate backsides.
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This was Margaret on 16 March 2012. She looked so healthy then. I would love to kiss her – not because she was Irish – she was Australian – but because she was Margaret.
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I went camping in the northern flinders Ranges of South Australia in 2011. I took this photo as dawn was happening on the 29th of May 2011.
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What Should I Do?
I wrote a letter to the Commonwealth Ombudsman on 7 April 2022. I will put that letter aside until a later blog. It was obvious the Ombudsman was never going to force the health insurers to obey the law. I knew no help would come as a result of that letter.
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The real problem was that the health insurers were ignoring the law and doing so with the approval of the official regulators – the Australian Health Department and the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
I needed a strategy to force the health insurers to obey the law. I needed a strategy that would do this with zero help from the official regulators. My strategy needed to be effective, and it needed to have a possibility of solving the issue quickly. Unless the health insurers were forced to obey the law, cancer sufferers who ought to be able to have the treatments provided by Lift Cancer Care through their private health insurance, might be forced to go without the Lift treatments that their doctors wanted them to have. In some cases, this would mean they would die when they ought to be able to live. In other cases, this would mean earlier death than might ought to be the case.
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Whatever happened, I knew Margaret would continue attending Lift. No matter what happened, we would find the money somehow – but others might not be able to find the money if their health insurers were allowed to continue ignoring the law.
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I worked out my strategy while meditating in the afternoon of Friday, 8th of April 2022. Meditation involves trying to empty the mind of normal thoughts. By trying to empty my mind of all thoughts concerning the health insurers, my subconscious mind was able to give me the solution. I realised that in reality, the solid wall of resistance erected by the health insurers was nothing of the kind. The health insurers had built a House of Cards and not a solid wall.
I could blow down the House of Cards quickly if I used the appropriate strategy.
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The Strategy
All of the health insurers were incorporated companies.
All companies have Boards of Directors.
In legal theory, the Boards of Directors act as the managers of their companies and the law recognises them as the company managers.
Being a company Director (especially if the company is a large one) is a very desirable job. It brings status and prestige. The pay is usually very attractive and the job of company Director usually requires very little work.
Most Directors rely on advice from the paid company employees. Many Boards of Directors do very little except meet as required and give approval to decisions already made by senior company employees (senior executives).
I realised I had to remind the Directors of the health insurers that as a matter of law, they were personally liable for the actions of the companies of which they were Directors. I needed to ensure they knew precisely what their companies were doing. I needed to point out that they would be liable to criminal and civil penalties unless each and every one of them took reasonable steps to make sure their companies obeyed the law.
I needed to create a situation where the Directors would be held legally liable for the crimes committed by their companies.
If I created a genuine prospect of personal legal liability for the crimes of their companies, the Directors would make their companies obey the law - because this would be the only way the Directors could avoid personal liability for the crimes of their companies.
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By early April 2022, Teachers’ Health had finally decided to obey the law and it had made an unannounced payment of tens of thousands of dollars into the Lift bank account. Despite this, Teachers’ Health had not actually told Lift that it would obey the law in future. As at 9 April 2022, HCF and NIB were still actively breaking the law and refusing to pay for Lift treatments.
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After meditating on Friday 9 April, I decided to write individual letters to every member of the Boards of Directors of HCF, Teachers’ Health and NIB. My letters would tell every single one of them what I had discovered about their companies. My letters would point out that because I had in my letters given them all relevant information, they would now be personally liable for the actions of their companies unless they demonstrated they had taken active steps to stop their companies from continuing to act in this way.
I decided to send copies of my letters to the Directors to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and I would write separate letters to the Treasurer and the Minister for Health.
I reasoned that surely I would be able to create enough anxiety among enough Directors to ensure they tried to protect themselves against the likely bad publicity and against personal liability for the crimes committed by their companies.
The Practical Steps
The names and contact details of all company Directors are listed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Obtaining the names and official contact details for the Directors of HCF, NIB and Teachers’ Health was simple enough. In total, there were twenty six Directors. HCF had nine; NIB had seven and Teachers’ Health had ten.
I started drafting a template letter on the morning of Monday, 11th of April 2022. I intended that every Director would receive the same letter but with those changes needed to reflect the differences in company names and the (relatively minor) differences in the way that the three companies had refused to pay the claims for treatments provided by Lift.
I finished my template letter early in the afternoon of that same Monday. It was twelve pages long.
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