FREEDOM, RIGHTS, AND EDUCATION FOR EVERYONE
Phone (719) 685-1870

Vision

F.R.E.E is an organization of individuals focused on and committed to personal growth. As we grow and model this for others, we are able to help them do the same. We dream of the day when everyday citizens and their dependents are educated about the freedoms and rights they can access in order to gain equal opportunity to resources (spiritual, human and material) necessary to achieve personal maturity. We believe this is the ultimate purpose of every human spirit. Our vision is to educate everyone about how much we are all interrelated to each other. We are dependent on each other for our safety and well being.

This concept will be applied to the process of achieving growth and maturity as a society as well. One major part of this is bringing about the economic changes necessary to make our free enterprise market-place more accessible, fair and just to the great majority of citizens. We dream of a just and fair society that truly honors the original intent of our US Bill of Rights.

Mission

We are presently striving to do the following in order to realize our vision:
Education: Since F.R.E.E. is a grass roots citizen/consumers advocacy organization with an arms length distance from any special interest group, we are best suited to bring into the full light of day the plain facts concerning the gross injustices inherent in the insurance industry's relationship with the citizen/consumer. Especially since we have loved ones and associates personally experiencing these injustices on a daily basis. We are in the process of educating every man, woman and child of reading age as to the socio/economic changes necessary to be made in our political system.

These changes involve revoking the special political favors, legislated business, tax & criminal law exemptions and the political exemption from prosecution based on criminal statutes and IRS laws that certain specially privileged individuals, families and corporations presently enjoy. For example, oil companies are allowed to dump toxic waste from the oil refining process anywhere in the country due to their exemption from EPA regulations.

Everyday citizens are thousands of times more likely to be prosecuted under criminal statutes for business and IRS violations than any of the executives and major shareholders of these big companies. In the rare instance when the IRS does investigate the possibility of tax law violations perpetrated by the executives/owners of big companies, they find hundreds of billions of dollars in undeclared and taxable income hidden in the companies' summaries of the income from their different divisions. Also found is taxable income hidden in foreign shell companies and bank accounts in Hong Kong and elsewhere.

Operators of small to medium businesses are far more likely to go to jail than the executives of Archer Daniel Midland and Hoffman La Roche, one of a number of big companies who have paid billions of dollars in fines for criminal price fixing; overcharging the consumer for hundreds of billions of dollars in products and services such as ethanol, corn syrup and vitamins.

We are advocating for the removal from all these exemptions that these executives presently enjoy from our "so called" free enterprise marketplace. These executives, upon conviction for criminal business and tax violations, should enjoy equal opportunity to go to jail and to pay court ordered personal fines. After all, is it not true that a young man or woman can be prosecuted and go to jail for stealing a few hundred dollars of merchandise from a local department store?

Yet an insurance company executive can conspire with other insurance company personnel, in house and out of house, on how to rip off the citizen/consumer/client for billions of dollars with immunity from prosecution and jail. These exemptions are particularly of notice in the insurance industry with it's legislated, and politically motivated, prosecutorial exemption from anti-trust, consumer fraud and tax laws; laws the rest of us have to abide by.

The mainstream media and our politicians as observed on C-Span are strangely silent as to the reporting of all that we have stated above. We intend to be a major voice in the process of educating the citizen/consumer on the information we will gather and disseminate that is very important to the regaining of their freedoms and rights in the marketplace.

Political Action

Our associates are presently advocating for legislative reform on the state and federal level in order to remove all the exemptions mentioned previously in the Education section as well as politically influenced protection from prosecution under criminal laws. The everyday citizen and small to medium sized business owner is often vigorously audited, investigated, and/or prosecuted under various criminal statutes regulating commerce and industry such as for tax evasion and/or price fixing. Prosecutors and regulators are famous for using the threat and the reality of jail sentences in reaching sometimes unfair business and financial settlements with everyday citizens. To our knowledge, none of the executives in these various industries has gone to jail.

Many wealthy individuals/families are hiding behind the corporate shield as they indulge in monopolistic business practices, consumer fraud, price fixing and possibly RICO act violations (racketeering). We are noticing big government fines against the corporation itself for criminal price fixing of consumer purchased commodities such as vitamins ( i.e. Hoffman La Roche, ... 725 million dollars). The consumer/citizen gets ripped off for billions everyday while the billions of dollars of fines for criminal price fixing or consumer fraud goes straight into Government coffers with no rebate to the consumer.

The US Supreme court has ruled in the last six months that insurance companies can be sued under the RICO Act. (See attached materials; the PA lawsuit). The insurance companies are not being pursued at this time by Federal prosecutors though there is increasing evidence they are guilty of monopolistic business practices and consumer fraud across the nation.

Insurance companies are presently exempt from the anti-trust laws since 1934 under the McCarren-Ferguson Act. They are also exempt from certain IRS laws that allow them to deduct up front from any taxable premium income any estimated claim payouts for the following fiscal year. This amounts to billions of dollars of tax free income to companies like State Farm which is controlled by one family; the Rust family. This tax exemption is one of the reasons why Warren Buffet, who invests mainly in insurance companies, is the country's second wealthiest man behind Bill Gates of Microsoft. Microsoft enjoys gross profit margins of 80% and is being prosecuted by the Justice department for alleged violations of the anti-trust laws.

What profit margins are being enjoyed by insurance companies exempt from anti-trust laws since 1934? Insurance executives and staff are legally allowed, among themselves, to fix profit margins and prices, to develop restrictive terms and conditions of insurance policies, and to teach each other how to hassle the claimant and the advocates of claimants such as attorneys, doctors and body shop owners with techniques like the following:
(1) how to deny a claim outright.
(2) how to delay or avoid claim payments for years
(3) how to use the $6,000 dollar a day taxpayer paid court system to wear down the claimant/client and the attorney and doctor working on contingency (client pays only a percentage commission if the case is won ) with a deluge of paper work and legal delaying tactics, all of which are very expensive and financially debilitating to the client and their advocates.

State Farm has recently set up a "Low Impact Center" where they try to minimize payment for liability to clients with proven severe injuries to the brain and other areas of the body. Many consumers have gone bankrupt waiting for claim settlements. For example, in CO, many insurance companies delay settling so as to force the client/consumer to the brink of financial disaster and then offer them pennies on the dollar as a settlement. Some insurance companies in CO delay negotiating a fair settlement until the CO statute of limitations for settlement within three years has expired. Some insurance clients are dying from their injuries while the insurance companies, and the insurance clerks that make the decision on whether you need brain surgery etc., or not, protect their profit margins of 40-200% or more. The protection of these profit margins by almost all employees of the insurance companies applies to all forms of insurance policies: auto, health care, HMO Medicare, property, liability, workers comp and so on. We estimate that the insurance industry overcharges all of it's US clients at the rate of a billion dollars a day for every trillion dollars of insurance premiums collected. We aim to assist in putting a stop to all of this and more by being one of the major political powers in advocating for legislative and prosecutorial reform.

Litigation

We intend to assist in developing class action lawsuits for consumer fraud state wide and on the federal level utilizing whatever laws are available including the RICO Act. We aim to be a catalyst for citizen/consumer billion dollar damage settlements with insurance companies akin to the ones negotiated with the tobacco companies. (Farmer's Insurance is owned By British American Tobacco.)

Has everybody noticed that none of the Tobacco company executives went to jail for contempt of Congress when they lied about their business practices in testimony before US Rep Henry Waxman's legislative committee? Meanwhile, many everyday citizens go to jail for contempt or perjury on a regular basis. When president Clinton was impeached, influential citizens were running around stating that nobody is above the law.

We suggest we all start paying life service to lip service and start indicting some of these influential business executives who are ripping us off for billions everyday ! F.R.E.E. has experience in developing and coordinating a 1996 federal anti-trust case filed against our local monopoly newspaper, the Gazette Telegraph, owned by one family with a billion dollars in assets and with no daily newspaper competition in our local market.

Guess what kind of high advertising rates we pay coupled with the minuscule wages and non-negotiable independent contractor fees, terms and conditions the Gazette unilaterally decides on for it's delivery personnel? The coordinator of F.R.E.E, Robert Spang Martindell, is a veteran in coordinating three federal civil anti-trust actions over twenty-five years including a personal and favorable out of court settlement with the N.Y. Post presently owned by Rupert Murdoch. (See samples). In 1977, Robert caused to have opened a criminal investigatory file at the Justice Department against Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for alleged anti-trust violations in N.Y. Robert was informed by Bruce Repetto of the Justice Department that typically the Justice Department pursued anti-trust charges against the small to medium business owners instead of big companies because of the difficulty to gain convictions against businessmen like Rupert Murdoch with all of their political connections. This is called selective prosecution when you unfairly choose to prosecute one group of business executives/owners over another.

Organizational Core Values

1. We plan to treat everybody within and without our organization with the same dignity, respect and honesty that we want for ourselves in all forms of communications.
2. We value open, honest, caring and non-judgmental two way communications with the right to disagree.
3. We plan to introduce a win-win philosophy toward all parties involved in the issues by moving toward consensus whenever possible.
4. We attempt to involve all citizens affected by future change making socio/economic decisions made in the political process. We intend to honor the decisions as they will be eventually agreed upon in the legislative reform process.

Organizational Goals

Education:

• To educate every citizen in public education and training centers we will assist in setting up in every state & Washington D.C. as to the freedom and rights they are entitled to exert in the legislative reform process we are initiating.
• To educate every citizen as to the negative effect monopoly interests have on the process of achieving self realization, a process that requires equal opportunity to access the resources necessary to achieve said goal.
• To show how monopoly interests substantially reduce free market competition and innovation in goods and technological services we need to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
• Demonstrate how monopoly interests reduce drastically the development of healthy consumers with discretionary income that will produce a truly vibrant economy that all citizens can partake in ... with a better quality of life for all.
• To develop an interactive website with links for every state and Washington D.C. so as to gather and effectively communicate information from all states and D.C. that will demonstrate the negative consequences of politically protected monopoly interests beginning with the insurance industry.
• To utilize said educational tools at our disposal; brochures, print media, T.V., radio, seminars, videotaped documentaries, cassettes and personal consultations to assist all citizen/consumers to make responsible political decisions so we can all successfully achieve individual self realization as we meet the challenges of the 21st century. The CO brochure; Auto Claims, Myths and Facts, already has a 12k distribution. The brochure was sent to every sitting legislator at the Capitol in Denver, CO. The brochure was observed by consumer advocates being used by legislators at legislative hearings when bills were introduced that were favorable to insurance companies and detrimental to consumers and their advocates. Several of these bills were defeated in committee or in votes on the floor. Our next brochure for national distribution may be "Why you need a trial lawyer to represent you in an insurance claim" which would outline many of the insurance company scams.
• We will use our website (60 million households now connected to the internet) to educate everyone as to the pattern of deceit used by the insurance industry to defraud consumers at all levels of the transaction with the insurance client/consumer. Several F.R.E.E. associates have already been on radio talk shows in Colorado Springs talking about the grave situations we talk about in this vision statement. We will establish a Website with educational materials; insurance legal settlements on behalf of the consumer state by state, accomplished legislative reform, affidavits establishing insurance company patterns of deceit and alleged fraud, "how to" kits for establishing a class action lawsuit in your state, a chat room for citizen/consumers in their role as patients, clients, plaintiffs and advocates for reform and other materials establishing the case for reform as stated by F.R.E.E in this vision statement. We will make materials available for reasonable charge for all interested parties for downloading from our website.
• We will educate as to the alternatives to having the insurance companies as middlemen in the delivery of quality, economical health care. Sam Walton of Walmart stores made much of his fortune bringing quality goods & services at discounted prices to the consumer by eliminating the middleman wholesaler. We could save 40-200% in cost (insurance company estimated profit margins) by having physician run HMO's that, as a team, teach preventative medicine like they do in Germany. When the patient is instructed as to how to take responsibility for their health, health care costs go way down per capita. Germany health care costs per capita are 50% of US costs and virtually every body is covered. This procedure would eliminate the public tax burden for treatment of the up to 40 million uninsured in this country. One of the insurance company insiders for FHP told a doctor in our network that FHP puts aside, up-front, 40% of it's incoming health care premiums for profit before paying out a dime for it's clients' health care. The rest of us citizens are obviously in the wrong business!
• We will use the 24 hour access to our website to attract supporters, organizers/activists, and contributors to our cause. This will be very cost effective compared to direct mail, T.V., and other advertising vehicles we may use to advertise the presence of our website.
• We intend to track the performance of the different insurance companies and post the results of consumer feedback on our website. We will also be glad to apprise the citizen/consumer of the highest quality of insurance companies like Northwestern Mutual that do their very best in the light of the present insurance industry's spotty performance as a whole.

Political Action

• To set up citizen/consumer political action groups in every state and in Washington D.C. that represent the socio/economic needs of all the citizens, not just a few politically protected special interest groups.
• To advocate for legislative and prosecutorial reform on the local, state, and federal levels.
• To promote political candidates who will understand the concept of one for all and all for one.
• To help create a positive political and social environment with justice and fairness for all.
• To promote legislation supporting a patient's bill of rights including the right to sue your insurance company for malpractice and malfeasance. This would include rewriting all legislation that exempts insurance companies from the laws, rules and regulations other business owners, executives and everyday citizens must obey: ERISA, Medicare, Federal Pension and Reform Act, Worker's comp, tax and anti-trust laws.

Litigation

• To encourage concerned individuals & grass root coalitions that F.R.E.E. is supported by: citizen/consumer groups, employee associations, small to medium size business owners, advocates for the citizen/consumer such as personal injury and public interest attorneys, health care practitioners and politicians who are truly interested in an even playing field in society where everybody plays according to the same set of rules.
• The rule that is predominating right now is, "The one who has the gold makes the rules". We intend to disseminate the information on how to develop class action lawsuits against insurance companies, (and eventually other monopoly industries ) in every state and on the federal level based on F.R.E.E.'s experience.
• Also we will inform on our website details concerning lawsuits presently in process such as the lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania against Aetna for alleged RICO act violations as well as class action law suits in Albuquerque, N.M., Chicago, Illinois and in CO alleging consumer fraud against Allstate. Our website will be a national clearinghouse of information documenting the patterns of insurance company deceit across the nation and how to take action in your particular state to reform the situation; politically, socially, and legally.

Financial Goals

• We intend to attract all the financial resources we need in order to offset the minimum 167 million dollar budget the insurance companies utilize to spread propaganda.
• Many everyday day citizens are convinced that the insurance companies are constantly on the brink of bankruptcy due to payouts for consumer fraud, manufacturer's liability suits ( such as decapitating, defective airbags that the auto industry knew about for 10 years from 1989 on ) and natural disasters.
• Most citizens are unaware of the vast assets accumulated for years by the few individuals and families controlling the insurance industry like Warren Buffet of Berkshire Life and the Rust family from State Farm. The jury of your peers may have preconceived ideas that the plaintiff/client/patient before them in the courtroom may very well be faking their soft tissue brain injury even if a team of health care professionals testify to the contrary.
• We intend to establish a budget ongoing that will allow for our own media blitz and to pay for the professionals and resources we must have to gather and act on the information needed to bring about reform, reforms we have articulated in this vision/mission & strategic planning statement.

Master Planning

We will, as in the past, continue to take feedback on how to achieve the first four stated goals by developing, implementing and institutionalizing our revised Master Plan. A plan which has remained in a state of metamorphosis, since 1995, as we continue to expand our awareness of what represents the highest common good ongoing for all citizen/consumers/taxpayers.

Robert Spang Martindell