Just wondering if you had to choose between Aetna or United Healthcare, which would you choose? Could one be better, and if so, how? Is one harder to deal with than the other?
Anecdotally, I’ve only had United for a few months at one job and it was the worst health provider I’ve ever had. Terrible website, no providers anywhere, etc. It was so bad it caused an employee revolt and HR had to change it to another provider (Anthem BCBS, I think).
Wasn’t United also the one whose CEO got shot? Not hard to see why.
I’m not sure, but I think I had Aetna too at another point in life. Wasn’t remarkable in any way, good or bad. Certainly didn’t leave the “never again” feeling that United gave me. United is the only provider I will absolutely never use again no matter what.
We have Aetna and are relatively happy with it. Our long-term physicians were in the plan and we haven’t had any problems finding new specialists as the need arises. They haven’t tried to fight us on anything in terms of coverage although all of our coverage needs are pretty normal stuff – no one has come down with a major disease or anything. Getting assistance from them to find a doctor or ask questions has been pretty painless but that might be because of the size of my workplace. We have a “Concierge” number on the card and I don’t know if that’s typical for Aetna customers.
Anyway, it mainly does what you’d expect insurance to do in my limited experience based on our non-critical needs. I can’t vouch for them in terms of major long-term financially draining circumstances when you’d need your insurance to work the most.
Granted, my own personal experience is probably a bit out of date, but I would go without insurance rather than use either option.
25 years ago, when I worked at the grocery store, if people presented a UHC card (they often did because major employers used that insurance) we would tell them that it probably wouldn’t pay, and most of the time, we were right.
That is staggeringly unrealistic unless you are either young and very healthy (even then it is quite reckless, because life) or can afford to pay out-of-pocket for major medical expenses, which few are so privileged. Otherwise you pick from the options available to you, even if they’re shitty. Because no insurance at all is just a nightmare waiting to happen unless you’re rich.
The only exceptions I’ve run across are certain truly crappy dental plans where it might be cheaper to just pay out of pocket. But dental work is way, way, wayyyyy cheaper than a short hospital stay.
Any insurance is better than none.
You either have it or you’re swimming in lucre and don’t care. All insurance that’s cheap is gonna have many many people using it, that causes problems.
Expensive insurance is, well…expensive and not perfect anyway.
State coverage is abysmal. Medicaid is possibly illegal, run by squirrels in the basement and failing the poor. I bet they wouldn’t mind some UHC or Aetna.
The thing is universal healthcare will not be much better. Free, but humping around with that arthritic knee an extra year doesn’t sound fun, to me.
Get the best you can get and cross your fingers, is all I can say.
I’ve had both, and Aetna was way, way better. In fact, I think it was the best of all U.S. health insurance companies I’ve had, although I’ve technically had only three.
United Healthcare is to be avoided like the plague. They fought hard to deny my claim for even a simple general-clinic visit pertaining to neck pain. If they’d do that for just a couple hundred dollars, imagine how hard they’d fight if you needed a $90,000 surgery.
Plus, after Luigi Mangione/Brian Thompson, it’s just the right thing to do to oppose United.
I have had some variation of UHC through my various employers for about 30 years. They never were a problem. They paid everything with no fussing. Including my late wife’s very expensive decade-long decline & eventual death.
When I retired a year+ ago I bought a UHC Medicare supplement. I don’t have as much experience with them (yet), but they’ve never been a problem (yet). They’ve paid everything with no fussing.
The punchline here is that there is not one monolithic “UHC” (Or “Aetna”). They each sell dozens of tiers of policies to employers that are different in each and every one of our oh-so-independent states. Same for Medicare Supplements or Replacements; several grades of policies times 50 states.
I will suggest, with just a touch of cynicism, that it matters far more that you get a good policy than that you pick a “good” company.
Depends entirely on which state and whether they’ve accepted the Medicare expansion.
The CT State Retiree Health Plan switched from United to Aetna a couple years ago, so my wife an I have had significant experience with both. We did not have any major issues with United at all, but I’ll admit that the State Retiree Health Plan was/is an extremely generous one (at least as far as the tier we’re in). Aetna has been slightly better as far as communications and inquiries, but they drive me nuts wanting to send nurses to my house to go over my health issues. I get phone calls about this on a regular basis. When they call, I point out that I already see at least one doctor every week (GP, urology, ENT, dermatologist, cardiac, dentist, ophthalmologist, etc.) and I really don’t need or want yet another person involved.
Last year we had a horrific experience with Aetna. Without diving into all the details (and painting the story with broad strokes), my spouse was immobile in excruciating pain for months, diagnostics were run and her doctor and surgeon approved an outpatient surgery, and Aetna denied as medically unnecessary. They would not tell us why unless we started an appeals process (which you are only allowed two of).
We appealed, and they again denied, and told us it was because she needed proof of X months of physical therapy. Which she had been doing and Aetna had been paying for.
We appealed a second time, her surgeon did a “peer to peer”, and eventually, after a month, they ‘reversed their denial’.
Great. The hospital just needs something in writing from Aetna before they’ll do the surgery. Aetna will not provide it. Long phone calls to a call center in SE Asia net a number of “we’ll have that out to you in the next two days” that never materialize, folks whose scripts are not equipped to process what seems like a simple request: “a document that says what procedure is approved, and in what time period”.
Eventually we did get that document, after a few more weeks post “approval”. Again, all while I am caregiving for my spouse who is fighting through excruciating pain even lying down, and who is reduced to tears after each daily 5 minute round-trip to the shower.
“Medically unnecessary”.
To be honest, I don’t believe that any other provider would be necessarily better or worse. I think they all work until the moment they don’t, and then depending on the urgency of your needs, it can be anywhere from a frustrating administrative experience to a nightmare that leaves you with long term health consequences.
… I’d also check and make sure that whatever local facilities you have or current resources you use accept both insurances. We are in a rural state, and there aren’t a lot of hospital options. Early last year our largest hospital almost stopped taking UHC because of contract negotiations. Also, a lot of mental health providers in our state don’t accept national providers. Confirm you’re picking the choice that gives you the in-network pricing you need.
Dental “insurance” nowadays seems to mostly be discount plans, with a few exceptions.
When my sister moved to California for the first time in the late 1990s, she was told to go without insurance rather than use Kaiser Permanente, more than once by more than one person. At least if you’re “bare”, you KNOW how much you have to pay, KWIM?
Excuse me, but that seems like terrible advice.
Bare?
Bankruptcy happens if you do that and get one serious injury or illness.
Knowing you’re going bankrupt doesn’t make you smart, it makes you poor.
I use Aetna through my workplace; it’s offered to all retirees. (dental and vision are under different plans, the same ones I had when I was working).
I’ve been quite happy with it. It’s been covering everything; no claim denied in the two years I’ve had it.
Kaiser has both the highest satisfaction rate and lowest denial rate in the HMO industry 
. Which is a bit like saying its the least painful torture chamber, but it’s something. Would Kaiser be my preference for cancer treatment? No - I’d rather be at a state of the art cancer research hospital of which there are a couple near me. But is Kaiser a “good” HMO? Relatively speaking, yes. I may go elsewhere when I hit medicare age because of higher likelihood of stuff like cancer treatment if it comes up and also the area restrictions I’d be under, but I’ve had Kaiser for going on 35 years now and have been reasonably satisfied with the care (reasonably does some heavy lifting here). This included a several day hospital stay.
I get it, but I couldn’t disagree more. With the important caveat being that it is fine if you’re as rich as Croesus.
My mother died a year or so ago after two weeks in the hospital, most of it spent in an Intensive Care Unit. The charged cost was several hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was mostly, but not entirely covered by Medicare because she was unfortunately under-insured (part A only). Her very small estate (administered by me, basically) had to shell out a couple-few tens of thousands of dollars, i.e. most of it, to cover the uncovered bits. It would have been a LOT more, but I negotiated various breaks of varying size in a dozen or more separate deals. It was a nightmarishly labyrinthine experience stretching over many months and I’m a pretty competent individual. It included such weirdly annoying shit as a couple of individual doctors who refused to take payments in random amounts ($600 here, $870 there) in any way other other than paper check. Anyway…
Paying a grand a month for insurance (or whatever) is always better than paying a half million for a two week hospital stay (plus every other normal medical expense on top of that). Always - barring “fuck you” levels of wealth.
I just wanted to chime in as a long-time (over 25 years) Kaiser patient. I have had nothing but good experiences with the doctors and staff there. I have a history of skin cancer and had multiple melanomas removed–one requiring surgery and a skin graft–and have always felt very well taken care of. When I retired I signed up for their Medicare Advantage program without hesitation and enjoy the same standard of care.
I have no idea what the “KWIM” is supposed to signify, but why you’d think paying for surgery yourself is cheaper than using an insurance company, even if you have to battle them, is baffling.
KWIM is know what I mean
Thanks. I know what it stands for, but I have no idea why it was used. Why would we not know what she means? Is there some undertone to it? Does it mean a joke was just told?
I’m not sure. I don’t get it either.
I googled it. Seems there’s not some secret insurance term called “bare”