Why?
Wait, I mean, boy, that’s a tough one, but OK, I guess, if you really mean it about not shipping us any more goddam emotional white chick singers. I mean, Jesus Marimba, enough already!
And if Sam Stone is in the mix, he’s got to be relocated to Texas. Non-negotiable.
Why? William Shatner’s my hero! He’s like James Kirk and Denny Crane rolled into one! And he’s a conduit for the ancient forces of nature, too. That’s useful in the cold, as a Texan in Minnesota such as yourself may well imagine.
As for Stone, the sedative is taking hold as I type, and I’ve already drilled the airholes in the crate. Crawford here we come!
Even then, I’d be more comfortable with a system controlled by the government, which we can vote out, than controlled by insurance corporations, which we can not influence.
It’s not my thread, but the more I learn the more I too become disgusted. I’m not happy about some issues in Alberta, but I can’t imagine the financial hassle Americans go through even if everything goes according to Hoyle insurance-wise.
For the few Americans in the audience, in Alberta we don’t just get it paid for, we don’t see the paperwork. An emergency splenectomy resulted in my dealing with less than three pieces of paper, and one was the bill for the ambulance ride ($215 if memory serves). It’s one of the advantages of a single-payer system.
Update, of sorts
Well, it’s about worst case scenario here. After two phone calls each to the insurance company, the hospital, and the benefits department here where I work, I’ve learned this:
The insurance company won’t pay a dime because they consider it a dental claim not a medical insurance claim. They suggest we talk to the hospital.
The hopsital can’t seem to do anything because they didn’t submit it as a dental claim. They suggest I talk to the insurance company.
The benefits made a few phone calls and said, in effect, “whelp, iunno…”
This is not me giving up. This is me gearing up for a fight.
But, honestly, despite
nothing’s covered. Nothing! And now I get to fight for what may be months on end through an appeal process to get them to pay for something. Anything.
This is what insurance is in this country. Fuck me. Give me the fucking government death panels.
Well, you’re alive, and that is a pre-existing condition.
With a dire prognosis, too. 100% fatalities.
The insurance system is somewhat based on denying otherwise valid claims. If one person hauls the insurance company into court and wins, but many people do not pursue their claims that far, then when weighing the occasional lost court fight against the many abandoned claims, the insurance company comes out far ahead.
If you pursue a claim, be certain of your facts and law before you proceed, and then give them hell.
Well, duh!, all your fault. Your wife got sick, on a weekend on top of everything!
Seriously, I hope you get the insurance company to cough up the money though it seems you’ll have to push for it until you go blue on the face.
5000 bucks from some painkillers and antibiotics it’s so ridiculous it’s not even funny, even here in Thailand where I’m not covered by any public healthcare, last time I got sick and needed antibiotics it cost me the equivalent of around 20 US dollars to get my ear checked by a doctor, medicine for the infection and some pain killers. I just went to the neares hospital, got it done and paid off my pocket then and there.
I’ll throw a related anecdote, not sure how much it jives with the US system. A friend was telling me agout his GF working as a health and death insurance seller, when she gets a sale she receives 30% of the payments (once a year IIRC) from the insured as a comission. So one third of the money an insuree (??) pays doesn’t go to actually any sort of medical attention, besides that I have no idea of the administrative costs the insurer has. I shouldn´t wonder if only half the money goes to a fund for paying medical treatments.
Exactly. Just to add, with any insurance policy, you should always:
– Read your policy. Don’t just assume you know what it says; really know what it says. Understand what is covered, what is not covered, and most importantly, what exclusions apply.
– Ask questions. If possible, ask your broker/agent what he or she thinks of this policy (you’d be surprised what an independent broker can say in response to this question). Would he or she buy this policy? Why or why not? (Note that I use “agents” to refer to employees of direct writers, so their opinions can be biased towards their employers.)
Most importantly, know that what’s been orally told to you may not apply. All you need to know, and everything the insurer must adhere to, is in the written policy itself. In other words, understand what the written documents say–unless you’re speaking with the underwriter him- or herself about the policy he or she is underwriting, I would suggest that you take what you’ve been told orally by anybody with a grain of salt. Read your policy, and if you really want to understand it, have a lawyer explain it to you–an informed consumer is a formidable weapon.
I don’t want to make things worse for Enderw24 but I had something that soungs very similar 2 years ago - it started on Saturday and by Sunday evening I badly wanted anti-biotics to deal with the inflamation (and anything else) until the dentist opened in the morning.
I think I was lucky but i was in and out of the ER in 28 minutes. No paperwork at all - you give your name as you go in - and with a course of anti-biotics in my pocket. That was the end of that.
I’m sorry for Enderw24 but what you have is not civilized never mind appropriate for an industrialized society.
But it’s a congenital disorder. My parents were alive too.
Can I chime in with a current example of a UHC system?
My daughter (27) is about to give birth to her first child. She has been working and paying into our government run Medicare Fund. It has cost her approximately $380 per annum on her income.
She has been entitled to (and used) a full ante-natal care system, including all tests and ultrasounds to ensure the health and well-being of herself and her baby.
Two nights ago her membranes ruptured and she was admitted into hospital to continue her care. She has a private room with a shared en-suite bathroom, all of her medications are free, as is her care by top teaching-quality obstetricians and midwives and other medical staff. No matter what happens from hereon, her treatment will not cost her a single cent…whether she needs a caesarean delivery, whether her baby needs neonatal intensive care or whether her mother (me) has a nervous breakdown WAITING for the delivery…it’s all covered.
And ya’ know, I’m really happy about that. I’d be happier if she had her baby RIGHT NOW instead of maybe next week, 
but that’s ok. I know she is in a safe place where the medical care offered is world class, and her risks are minimised. Give me our system (with all of its flaws) over that of the US anyday.
Thank you all for your advice. As I said, we actually tried calling several numbers on the back of the insurance card before going to the hospital to ensure we were doing everything correctly. They’re all closed on Saturday, so no advice was forthcoming.
I’ve looked through my policy and have a few points which I believe I can use to appeal the claim, but right now I’m just going to sit and wait for the paperwork. The people who answer the phones have no authority to change anything and it’s not worth even trying that route at this point.
But (and I know you guys aren’t blaming me) what my policy says is largely irrelevant to my actions. It’s not as if I really had the choice to NOT go to the hospital. It was the only option available, regardless of what insurance had to say about it.
So, yeah, it’ll be awhile, but I’ll get this resolved one way or the other. Hopefully in the good way.
Yes, but that innocent little baby will grow up under the iron socialistic heel of the despotic “people’s republic” of–hmmm…“Corowa, NSW”–Australia, trapped behing the impenetrable Iron…uh…Barrier Reef, living out his or her life toiling away on some collective sheep station or something, and never knowing what it’s like to breathe the clean, pure air of FREEDOM!
Poor little tyke.
Another example of outrageous overcharging: my mother went to the doctor to have her ears cleaned. The bill from Blue Cross was $60 for a “surgical procedure.” Said “surgury?” Having her ears flushed out with water and a syringe. :rolleyes:
calls Starving Artist a name no longer permitted by the “kinder, gentler” Pit rules
Ever heard of Medicaid? Even then, very few are eligible. I was only it very briefly, but only until I paid off some hospital bills – once those were taken care of, that was it.
Look, this is just a very sore subject with me. I’m uninsured, with a genetic disease (epilepsy), I’m taking seven pills a day (a “anti-convulsant cocktail”, if you will), and it ain’t cheap. Fortunately, my doctor was able to get me into a (private) program to fund one of my meds, but it was the cheaper one. The expensive meds I take probably the highest dosage, which means two different pills, one of which has to be cut in half, and they’re damned expensive.
I’m lucky in that I live with my parents. For all the grief I get about it – and no, I don’t just “sit on my ass and mooch off of them”, I do a hell of a lot for them as well, just not financially, not everyone is as fortunate as I am. And I’m STILL paying bills from last year when I blacked out at the bus stop and was taken to the ER by ambulance.
I was laid off back in January, and even then, I didn’t have insurance, in fact, I haven’t had any since I was in college. And even when I find a job, I’m scared I’ll be rejected, due to “pre-existing conditions.” The people who need health insurance the MOST, the ones WITH medical conditions, can’t even MAKE these so called “choices.” Freedom to choose my pretty little ass.
Good luck to you, Enderw24.
God, this thread is fucking depressing. I don’t know whether to scream, cry, or break something.
Try all three, and come back and let us know which one works best. 
Seriously, though, I wish you well.
Yeah, I’ve heard of it.
Yeah, that’s mostly what I’ve heard about it.
Kind of like Social Security disability, huh? That’s where, when you become disabled and have medical bills and no money coming in, the SS administration “assumes” you have enough money set aside to live on (this is what they tell you when you sign up, btw) for the six months to a year that it will take for the wheels of government to turn enough to decide whether or not you get benefits. And then, as has been mentioned in this thread and others, virtually everyone gets turned down, even people who’ve had strokes and been completely paralyzed on one side of their body.
So, we’ve got Medicaid that hardly anybody can get. And Social Security disability that pretty much refuses everyone automatically, no matter how badly they’re disabled or how dire their financial circumstances may be. (And which forces recipients, when they finally become one, to have to pay a third to a half of the money they finally get, which is intended to be payment for all the months you were due it but didn’t get it, to attorneys in return for the legal help necessary to get what you rightfully had coming to you in the first place.)
And you want to put the future health care decisions of yourself and your family and loved ones into the hands of a government that operates like that, huh?
You people who think all would be sunshine and lollipops if only the government was running things are going to be in for a very rude awakening if and when it ever happens. The frickin’ government doesn’t give a shit about you! Get that through your heads! The government will make you wait for help you need. It will make you settle for the cheapest and invariably less effective alternative to the care you actually need. It will deny you treatment if word comes down from on high to deny that particular treatment, no matter how badly you need it. And if what they’ve done with the Social Security program is any indicator, Congress will raid the program for money to put in the general fund in the unlikely event that the program develops a surplus. And hey, why not? Once the program is out of dough again - dough it would not be out of if Congress hadn’t taken it - they can always trot out the threat of loss of benefits (again just like they do with Social Security) and raise taxes enough to cover it.
When it comes to running virtually anything besides the military, the government of the United States sucks, and I don’t want it making decisions as to the health care my family and I get and how we get it.
And that will remain the case no matter how many names you want to call me.
Starving Artist: The triumph of ideology over experience.
Starving Artist: The triumph of the strawman.
SA, the problems you cite, to whatever extent they may or may not actually exist, are problems of access because those programs are limited and require special qualification.
The idea of universal health care is that it would be-- uh, you know-- universal. Not limited to a subset of the population, therefore requiring no qualification beyond the “Yup, it’s me!” level.
With no qualification required, your straw issues disappear.