I was a caseworker once for a middle-aged couple. The husband was 60 and couldn’t get Medicare. Their insurance company casually handed him a death sentence by refusing to cover his medication because it related to a “pre-existing condition.” That company casually destroyed the entire family. The wife went bankrupt, the adult kids were set up for many, many years of financial devastation by giving all the money they possibly afford (and beyond what they could afford.) it was the most disgustingly cruel thing ever…
The ONLY consolation is that it’s killing insurance companies to not be able to exclude “pre-existing conditions” anymore. NOT because of the money, because they’ll make that up in other ways. No. They are losing that ability to play God, because there’s a way of playing God like no other if all those people can be excluded in that exact way. There’s nothing quite like it, and nothing else can make up for it. The power to hand out life or death like trivial party favors… And it must have been good to play God and yawn while they destroyed people’s lives.
NO MORE. IT IS OVER.
Oh, and it would be nice if those top execs burned in the eternal flames of hell, too.
Too extreme? Not when you’ve watched people die or lose every cent they’ve ever worked for in their entire lives.
It’s eHow not Paul Krugman in the New York Times. The woman writing it was probably paid twenty bucks to write the thing. You’re going after a gnat with a nuclear bomb.
It’s just so much rage directly at such an unimportant source. The OP is so furious at a freelancer who may even be doing without health insurance herself or struggling to pay for it. The writer in question has no power at all. Being so angry at one little sentence in her article – a sentence she may not even have written, a sentence that may even have been inserted by her editor – is an over the top and utterly ridiculous overreaction.
Jeez. I’ve written for eHow via Demand Studios. Half the articles I wrote there have stuff in them I had no say in putting there. It’s not a prestigious assignment. I wrote to make money and nothing more. She’s not Julian Fellowes writing for an audience of millions each week, She’s just some poor, hardworking soul trying to make a few bucks to pay her bills.
The rage expressed tat her in her is utterly over the top absurd.
Maximizing shareholder profit at the expense of suffering humans is plenty evil enough. There’s no need to characterize them as cartoon villains with God-complexes on top of that.
I’m curious to see what would happen if you separated a set of twins at birth. Operated on the brain of one twin to induce a permanent vegetative state, and educated the other twin on nothing but eHow articles. At age twenty, perform a double-blind study to see if there are any differences. Unfortunately there are laws against such cruelty, so first we’ll have to work on repealing them.
So what else are they supposed to do? They’re not philanthropic organizations, and until recently there were no requirements for coverage from either side.
They probably figured that this guy with the pre-existing condition would just be a giant money hole- as in, they’d pay out in medical claims some multiple of the amount they’d collect in premiums, that is unless they raise the premiums.
Both are somehow considered “evil”, but what are they supposed to do? Accept this guy and just pay out an unlimited amount of money because he’s sick? That’s absurd.
If you’re going to be upset, be upset at the system as a whole, not the insurance companies in particular- they’re acting rationally within the system.
Blaming the system is easy and lazy. Its an excuse for otherwise smart people to be intellectually dishonest. The insurance company can afford it, they should have paid to help keep this guy alive. And instead of raising premiums, maybe do more to attract new customers and get people to buy into low-risk plans. But if the choice staring at you were to keep within the system and let this guy die or do something, then you should do something.
This is one more reason why government needs to be in the insurance business. With the government, there is much less worry about profitability and more on actually serving people. Yeah, we get it, the insurance companies are not there to serve people, they need to make money. Well if people are dying, then they need to get out of the business and let the government take over. The for-profit insurance industry that controls life and death should be eliminated
“Accept this guy and just pay out an unlimited amount of money because he’s sick? That’s absurd.”
No - that’s INSURANCE. Collect premium money and don’t pay it out - that fraud. Company collects money from a lot of people, and pays the bills of those who get sick. It doesn’t balance on an individual basis, but the group as a whole.
A question occurs to me: are there any insurance companies who are innocent of such practices? Wouldn’t such a morally excellent position attract vast hordes of virtuous investors, eager to support such laudable behavior?
I understand that, but the thing is that most chronic conditions like say… diabetes or smoking or something along those lines are HUGE money pay-outs, and it takes an inordinate number of people who essentially pay in and never go to the doctor to offset them without premium increases or denying coverage. (that’s part of the point of the ACA, BTW)
So insurance companies tend to do one of two things- either deny coverage or charge high premiums, both of which are decried as inhuman and horrible, but what else are the (for-profit) companies supposed to do? Pay out and not collect enough to cover this guy?
Can’t wait until property and casualty insurance companies are forced to accept pre-existing conditions. I’m going to buy several run down properties and have the insurance company pay to fix them up. I’m also going to head to the junk yard and buy several classic wrecked cars and get them restored on the insurance company’s nickel.
Wait…what…you say that’s not gonna happen. But that’s how it’s supposed to work…at least that how several folks on the SDMB say that’s how insurance is meant to work.
I contract cancer, I go get insurance, then they pay for all of my treatments.
Maybe that’s why we need health coverage and not health insurance. The insurance model isn’t working well anymore, if it ever did, yet people still need health care. Well, either that or we just let them die but I believe our society can afford to take care of people seeing how everyone else in the First World manages to do it.