Like her boss, Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell, and Farrell’s colleagues Minister for Health, Mark Butler, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers and my local MP Steve Georganas, Bonnie Pederson, the senior assistant to Minister Don Farrell, was completely uninterested in helping me to force the health insurers obey the law.
People dying from cancer did not matter to Bonnie Pederson.
****
Signing the paperwork at our wedding on the 30th of July 2009.
****
Anne Ryan had an affair with my friend Nes Fernandez and persuaded him to cancel me when Margaret was dying. This is Anne Ryan with Nes Fernandez on the 13th of December 2010
****
Email to Bonnie Pederson 9 July 2022
After writing personal letters to Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell and my local Member of Parliament Steve Georganas, I wanted to ensure that my letters were in fact delivered. Because I had spoken to Bonnie Pederson in Farrell’s office, I sent an email to Pederson asking her to ensure my letters got delivered. This Table summarises my attempts to communicate with Bonnie Pederson. I have never heard anything at all – ever – from Bonnie Pederson.
****
Communication | Length | Sent | Response Date | Response Length | Response Said |
Email to Bonnie Pederson 9 July 2022 | 2 pages | Email sent to bonnie.pederson@aph.gov.au at 11.07 am on Saturday 9 July 2022 | No reply | Zero | Zero |
Letter to Don Farrell 8 July 2022 | 7 pages | Email sent to dfarrell@aph.gov.au at 4.57 pm on Friday 8 July 2022 | No reply | Zero | Zero |
Letter to Jim Chalmers 8 July 2022 | 7 pages | Email sent to bonnie.pederson@aph.gov.au at 11.07 am on Saturday 9 July 2022 | No reply | Zero | Zero |
Letter to Penny Wong 8 July 2022 | 8 pages | Email sent to bonnie.pederson@aph.gov.au at 11.07 am on Saturday 9 July 2022 | No reply | Zero | Zero |
Letter to Steve Georganas 8 July 2022 | 6 pages | Email sent to bonnie.pederson@aph.gov.au at 11.07 am on Saturday 9 July 2022 | No reply | Zero | Zero |
Letter 7 July 2022 to Mark Johnson, Chairman of HCF | 13 pages | Email sent to bonnie.pederson@aph.gov.au at 11.07 am on Saturday 9 July 2022 | No reply | Zero | Zero |
“How the Health Insurance Funds’ Scams Work” | 5 pages | Email sent to bonnie.pederson@aph.gov.au at 11.07 am on Saturday 9 July 2022 | No reply | Zero | Zero |
Copy of letter 7 July 2022 to Mark Johnson, HCF Chairman | 13 pages | Email sent to bonnie.pederson@aph.gov.au at 11.07 am on Saturday 9 July 2022 | No reply | Zero | Zero |
****
My email to Pederson was a personal one. She had been sympathetic and had promised to help.
Dear Bonnie,
…
Things have moved on somewhat since our discussion. On 11 April 2022 I wrote personal letters to every Director of HCF, NIB and Teachers Health Fund. In those letters, I gave them details of the workings of the scams that were being perpetrated by the companies of which they are Directors. I pointed out that because I had now told them in detail what their companies were doing, they carry personal liability for the criminal activities of the companies they are Directors of. About one week before I sent the letters to the Teachers health Fund Directors, Teachers Health finally decided to obey the law and paid to Lift Cancer Care Services, all of the money that it had refused to pay over the previous four years, In early June 2022, prompted I am sure by my correspondence to Mark Johnson, Chairman of HCF, HCF in writing told Lift Cancer Care Services that it would pay claims in future and that it would pay the arrears that it should have paid over the previous 4 years. HCF paid us the money that was owing as a “Discretionary payment”.
Sometime in April 2022, the ACCC advised me that it had opened a preliminary investigation file in relation to HCF. The ACCC conducted a 1 hour telephone interview with me and Margaret on 2 May 2022.
At that point, it looked as though my persistence had paid off and that the funds would finally obey the law at least in relation to Lift Cancer Care Services. They did not and will not obey the law in relation to other health services providers (multiple I think) that they continue to treat in a similar fashion to Lift Cancer Care Services.
Unfortunately, my optimism about HCF has now evaporated. HCF has backtracked on its promise to backpay Lift Cancer Care Services.
…
Yesterday 8 July 2022 I wrote personal letters to the new Ministers for Health, Treasury, Trade and Tourism and to my local MP Mr Steve Georganas. I enclosed with my letters, a copy of a letter that I sent on 8 July 2022 to HCF Chairman Mark Johnson. In my letters to the Ministers, I asked them to do their best to respectively enforce the law (Mr Butler) and encourage the ACCC (everyone else including Mr Butler) to widen its investigation into the health funds.
I sent my letters to the recipients at their @aph.gov.au email addresses. I am aware that these email addresses are not the most direct route to contacting the intended letter recipients. I presume that as a staff member of Minister Don Farrell, you have access to more direct ways of communicating with the intended recipients.
I am therefore attaching to this email, copies of all the letters that I sent out yesterday, plus an attachment to those letters. For each Parliamentary addressee, my intention is that they receive (1) my personal letter to them (2) copy of the document setting out how the health fund scams work (3) copy of my letter to Mr Mark Johnson, Chairman of HCF.
Will you please use your official position as a staff member to Don Farrell to ensure that the intended recipients receive their letters and attachments as soon as possible.
…
… My thinking has also developed somewhat. Because this vile conduct by the health funds is, I think, endemic and results in the forced closure of many health service providers who have been approved and given provider numbers by the relevant Federal government authorities, this problem is vastly broader than the small sliver of conduct that has encouraged me to act. I believe a system wide inquiry – perhaps a Royal Commission – should be instituted to uncover the intimate details of the fund behaviour and try and prevent it from turning Australia’s health system into a reflection of the vile “Managed Care” model that operates in the US. I know we have Medicare, but the funds are doing their utmost to control everything else. It is vile behaviour. If it was appropriate to have a Royal Commission into the conduct of trade unions, it is infinitely more appropriate to have a Royal Commission Into the behaviour of the private health insurance funds. My document headed How the Scam Works provides some insight into how the funds have got away with what they have been doing.
Kind Regards
John Hankin |
No comments:
Post a Comment