As a European living in America for the last 13 years, I think the US system is horrendous. I would swap it for the UK system of “NHS plus private insurance if you want” in a heartbeat. I have seen poor relatives in the UK get excellent care and never have to think about the cost. I have seen my wife’s poor relatives do without or delay treatment because they cannot afford it, and suffer as a consequence.
I’m guessing its because the word hasn’t really gotten around, that you don’t really buy insurance so much as an opportunity to spin the Wheel of Coverage. For years and years, insurance companies have promoted the image of benign fiduciary functionaries, offering a public service at a modest but sustainable profit.
Then we heard the occasional story about some health insurance plan gone terribly wrong, innocent people needlessly bankrupted, and we thought it some kind of fluke, a stupid computer error, or some such, and dismissed it with the calm assurance that somebody would be fixing that glitch toot damn sweet. At least partly because, well, we didn’t actually know those people, did we?
I’ll take a wild guess and suggest that the majority of us do know such a person, or have an indirect but still personal knowledge of same. But we don’t hear it so much on the news because it isn’t news anymore, its SOP. I’ll hazard a further guess to offer that the reason it ain’t news anymore is because they are doing a lot more of it, and so far its only a problem to their PR department.
And unless we do something about it, they not only will keep doing it, they are likely to do a lot more of it, at least for the immediate future. Why? Because their financial whiz kids aren’t any smarter than the rest of them, and they all just lost a metric buttload of money. And they want it back. And to get it, they will be willing to do things that would make Ayn Rand and Gordon Gekko’s bastard child blush with shame.
Oh, and if your policy has a check mark box about organ donation, be sure to read that very, very carefully…
I didn’t want to let this pass without noting it - I agree with this completely. Like you say, power is with the corporations and lobby system, and I have no idea how that can be changed - the people in power have no reason to change the system they benefit from, and they’re the ones with the power.
I agree with you to a point, that termination might have been a good option for a baby that sounds pretty damn close to non-viable, but it strikes me that making that decision just based on how much it’s going to cost is not right.
There is nothing stopping you from going to a hospital for treatment BEFORE you get insurance company approval. Nothing. And the hospital will make you sign umpteen gazillion forms stating that whether your insurance covers your treatment or not you promise to make sure the hospital gets paid, out of your own pocket if you can’t get the insurance company to pony up. PARTICULARLY if the surgery is for an emergency, or to prevent an emergency, it is very easy to find yourself treated and on the hook for a huge bill.
Nope. If you produce evidence of insurance the hospital will proceed - they aren’t going to bother with double-checking on whether this, that, or the other is covered, that is the patient’s responsibility. Seriously, read the fine print.
Given the delay in payment that is common these days it is entirely too easy for this to occur.
Nope. The insurance company can’t force you to go to an in-plan provider. They just won’t pay for it if you go out of network (or pay an enormously reduced percentage of the cost - again, read the fine print).
It is entirely possible to get pre-approval, only to have it withdrawn after the fact. And, as soon as you start racking up six-digit bills the insurance company will start looking for a reason - any reason - to withdraw approval. So what if you take them to court? That will take years. Years they won’t have to pay for your bills and years during which they might find a way to wriggle out of the obligation.
Re-read the OP - the deformities were found 6 months into the pregnancy. Good frickin’ luck finding an abortion provider for the second trimester, let alone at 6+ months. In this case that is not a practical option in the US…
Where do you draw the line at acceptable birth defects? I do get a little huffy about that, as my husband was also born defective, significantly so, yet managed to be a contributing tax payer for 25 years. Just because someone has a serious birth defect does not mean they will be a useless human being.
Again - where the hell do you find someone willing to perform an abortion at 6 months along? Seriously? Did anyone suggesting this actually consider the fact that abortion past 6 months of gestation is more or less impossible to find in this country? Name me even one place willing to perform an elective abortion at 6 months gestation.
Yeah, my mind took a short vacation there, but my main point is the same one you asked directly above the quoted paragraph, “Where do you draw the line?”
So A walks into B’s place of business, purchases a service to be provided under certain conditions, pays for it on an ongoing basis (or receives it from his employer as a part of compensation for his work), and when those conditions occur, A contacts B and the service is denied. In any field other than insurance, this would be considered fraud.
And the Republican Party has made it their business to defend the defrauding of the public by this industry. If you believe in individual responsibility and freedom, then fix it, or be a part of a Republican rank-and-file movement to demand their party fix it in a private-sector manner.
Good point - they do generally call it “pre-approval”, and the “pre-” part doesn’t mean “we’re issuing approval before the procedure.”
Another good point. One of only three US doctors, Dr. George Tiller, that would do third trimester abortions, even for reasons like “the infant is dying inside the mother and won’t live to delivery”, was murdered in his church in June. Plenty of women who didn’t want to suffer through the agony of delivering a dead baby or one who would die shortly after birth went to him or the other two locations.
FYI, we covered this back in the last Rand Rover thread. Debating Crafter_Man has not had a track record of changing any one’s mind, or accomplishing anything more useful than that warm inner glow of righteous RO.
ETA: That sounded a bit snarkier than I intended. Nothing wrong with the self-righteous inner glow. To be honest, that’s more or less my reason for lurking the Pit. Go ahead and debate libertarianism; just know that you probably won’t accomplish anything useful.
What’s the story here?
Well, it is 'luci, so he could be making a trenchant comment on his own, but when I read the post, I was put in mind of this.
Make sure there’s no clauses that give them the right to do it.
Come on, dude, there is simply no use bothering to respond to the nonsense that Crafter Man spews. Likewise, there is no use responding to someone who argues that everyone should be taxed 100% and then have government pay for absolutely every need and want of every citizen.
Intelligent grown-ups know that there is a constantly changing mixture of socialism and capitalism in all states. The only argument between sane, thinking people is-- what is the ratio? What is appropriate for the state to provide for (and fund through taxes) and what is the responsibility of individuals to pay for themselves?
Currently, the most civilized nations of the world consider health care to be something that their states are wealthy enough to provide for their citizens. The USA has not reached that level of civility, but it will, it will. That doesn’t help all of us who are being fucked by the knuckle-dragging voters in the USA who are slowing down progress, (and BTW, damn those sluggards to hell!) but we will get there. It is just a matter of time. Time that the people mentioned in the OP, and so many others don’t have.
So why? WHY? WHY must it take so long?
WWJD? (If he existed, he would make himself not. That would be a nice head-start).
Jesus was a Socialist.
Well, I was grimly joking when I said it, but now that I think about it, I’m not so sure…
Yes, but you can’t tell Christians that. They’ll stone you to death with some good Christian Lovin’ and Fergivin’.
If Hey-Zeus was the beneficent cartoon super-hero that all his nit-wit groupies believe, the most Beatific thing he could do would be convince all of them that he never existed in the first place; that they are the shallow, drooling fools that the rest of us know them to be.
But it’s right there in the Book!
‘Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.’ – Matthew 19:21
‘And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.’ – Acts 4:32
‘Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.’ – Luke 12:33
So, you want him to magically come back and tell us there is no such thing as magic?
My understanding is they (insurance) agreed to cover it at first, then found a technicality to get out of paying for it.
It happens like that sometimes, insurance will find ways to rescind or deny coverage after treatment has begun. I feel bad for all the cancer patients who get a rescission letter halfway through chemotherapy.