Insurance companies are clapping their hands. Now they can offer you a loan (if you qualify, but you won't because your credit was destroyed by outstanding medical bills and/or you don't meet income requirements because you lost your job because you're too sick or you simply earn too little) after denying your claim. Claim denials are going to skyrocket.
This is why, as a Canadian, I get screamed at so often about how my country is going to just let me die if I get really sick because wait times!!!!!!! Except I then explain that for life threatening issues there is no wait time, we are just pretty good at triage. And then I get called a liar, or an idiot, or whatever else some moron American decides is an insult. It's exhausting!
Same wait times exist in for-profit healthcare except the wait times are built into the system. For insurance companies, delay means more profit. By the time you get the MRI you need, your cancer has spread significantly.
>>A lending option offered by insurers is essentially a workaround to mitigate the high cost of A.C.A. plans, said Joel White, a health care consultant who advises Republicans.<<
Health care consultant my hirsute ass. Fucking 1980s Gordon Gecko "greed is good" cannibal necrophiliac. You COULD advise the Repubs on how to bring down the "high cost of A.C.A. plans" but instead, you talk only of how to extract maximum cash from the most vulnerable. Fuck you. Just... fuck you.
To the people who want to keep their private insurance in the event we do wise up and move to single payer, I'd point out that in the UK one is absolutely free to light their money on fire and to pay more for private coverage, if the otherwise excellent NHS doesn't help them quickly enough. I mean, don't billionaires already use concierge doctors?
But it's a silly argument anyway because we do have single payer here for people 65+ and I recall both my parents and my stepmom enjoying outstanding medical care through Medicare, without six month waits or death panels killing them even once. We not only have a proof of concept, we have a fully functional and efficient and high quality single payer system that has been tested and proved for generations. Its successful existence makes these arguments even more infuriating, frustrating, and stupid. My only conclusion from the Republican's multi-generation attacks on our health care is that between their eugenicism and their insatiable greed, their only goal is to shake us all upside down by the ankles until we go bankrupt and die, thus freeing them to worry about managing the white, wealthy, medium-sized, Protestant utopia that they hope to turn this nation into.
Gather ‘round children because it’s time once again for Wookie Monster to tell the story of the knee replacement his insurance company refused to pay for.
I spent a year hobbling along with a walker while fighting with my insurance provider to pay for it. That’s a year of excruciating pain. When it finally did get approved, my orthopedist told me it was one of the worst knees he’d ever worked on and he was amazing I could walk on it at all.
But please tell me more about unacceptable wait times under socialism. It’s fascinating.
I'm an RN that works in a hospital - one of my favorite hospitalists (physician that does internal medicine inpatient IN the hospital) - just left to join a concierge practice. Makes me sad. Another very bright (left-leaning) physician was telling me that almost EVERY peer-to-peer phone call (about denial of care) with insurance companies ends with the insurance company getting their way.
Memories of my Jesusbot sister who suffered from cancer and had her church elders anoint her with oil and lay their hands on her to heal her in the name of Jesus. She posted that her "deep christian faith" would pull her through.
Mother Monster had breast cancer in her thirties that spread to her uterus. She turns 89 next month because she went to the hospital and got real medical treatment.
I had a dear family friend who got cancer and was absolutely convinced that naturopathy and crystals would pull him through. It didn't. Not the same as a sister, but I can sympathize.
My insurance, United Advantage foisted on me by my pension plan, doesn't cover Vicodin apparently. I'm going to go ahead and buy it, because I need it, and file a claim. I'lll keep you guys posted.
I'm turning 50 later this year and have a grandmother(and her sister), great aunt and a great aunt(my grandfather's sister) on another part of my family tree who all died of colon cancer. My doctor was like "go get a colonoscopy", so I called the place. I've got Medicare because I'm disabled and the receptionist was so weird, saying it wouldn't be paid for because to her, I'm "not old enough yet".
I spent 30 darned minutes on the phone with her, where she would argue with me, then say nothing for 5-10 minute stretches. It was weird.
I finally said "I'll pay if Medicare doesn't", and told her my dad died of pancreatic cancer that spread to his liver. She scheduled the consultation. And you know what? Medicare paid for most of it and Medicaid paid the rest.
Sorry, had to share because during that call, I wanted to both yell and cry.
Unexpected shit happens all the time. Every time you get in your car or hop on your bike you are risking catastrophic medical expenses or death. Every time. And we all do it every single day without a second thought.
My best friend was driving home from visiting their daughter when a wrong-way drunk driver hit them head-on on I-80 at 10 pm. Drunk driver had no driver's license, no job, no insurance, no money, and 2 previous DUIs. Drunk driver went to prison.
My friend's life was saved by the airbag, but the seat belt broke her collar bone, 3 ribs and her pelvis, and ruptured her colon so badly that they had to remove 3 feet of it. Her knees hit the dashboard and broke, and all the bones in both feet fractured (she is 4'11" and very petite). Her husband's seat belt broke a couple of ribs. They were both unconscious, the car caught fire, and Good Samaritans were able to pull them from the car before they burned to death. She was in the hospital for 6 weeks.
They were self-employed and had health insurance, but it had high deductibles, and their car insurance's medical coverage wasn't as high as it should have been. They ended up having to sell their house and their business to pay their medical bills. Of course they had to buy a new car, too.
And then there is my friend Rob, whom I've written about here many times. He was riding his motorcycle at the speed limit down a major city road with a center turn lane on a sunny Saturday afternoon in September, and wearing a helmet. Stupid woman in center lane turned left immediately in front of him, his bike hit her front right fender, he flew 60 feet and hit a power pole. The guy wire sliced off his left leg and his right leg hit the pole, shattering it. He then fell to the ground and hit his head on the pavement. He would have bled to death if an E.R. nurse wasn't driving by who happened to have a first aid kit with a tourniquet.
He was in the ICU for 12 days at a cost of $16,000 per day, followed by months of rehab. He had high insurance deductibles. He lost his leg, his job, his group health insurance, his house and his mobility and had to live on $1550/mo SSDI, which was $200/mo too high to qualify for Medicaid in Missouri, so I found him a subsidized ACA plan for $50/mo. Seven years later he died of a brain tumor that developed in the exact spot where he hit his head on the pavement.
Insurance companies are clapping their hands. Now they can offer you a loan (if you qualify, but you won't because your credit was destroyed by outstanding medical bills and/or you don't meet income requirements because you lost your job because you're too sick or you simply earn too little) after denying your claim. Claim denials are going to skyrocket.
This is why, as a Canadian, I get screamed at so often about how my country is going to just let me die if I get really sick because wait times!!!!!!! Except I then explain that for life threatening issues there is no wait time, we are just pretty good at triage. And then I get called a liar, or an idiot, or whatever else some moron American decides is an insult. It's exhausting!
Same wait times exist in for-profit healthcare except the wait times are built into the system. For insurance companies, delay means more profit. By the time you get the MRI you need, your cancer has spread significantly.
We'll end up with an army of Luigis if this gets much worse.
>>A lending option offered by insurers is essentially a workaround to mitigate the high cost of A.C.A. plans, said Joel White, a health care consultant who advises Republicans.<<
Health care consultant my hirsute ass. Fucking 1980s Gordon Gecko "greed is good" cannibal necrophiliac. You COULD advise the Repubs on how to bring down the "high cost of A.C.A. plans" but instead, you talk only of how to extract maximum cash from the most vulnerable. Fuck you. Just... fuck you.
This is just the age-old solution of paying your MasterCard bill with your Visa Card. It never works for long.
What about nipple coverage?
To the people who want to keep their private insurance in the event we do wise up and move to single payer, I'd point out that in the UK one is absolutely free to light their money on fire and to pay more for private coverage, if the otherwise excellent NHS doesn't help them quickly enough. I mean, don't billionaires already use concierge doctors?
But it's a silly argument anyway because we do have single payer here for people 65+ and I recall both my parents and my stepmom enjoying outstanding medical care through Medicare, without six month waits or death panels killing them even once. We not only have a proof of concept, we have a fully functional and efficient and high quality single payer system that has been tested and proved for generations. Its successful existence makes these arguments even more infuriating, frustrating, and stupid. My only conclusion from the Republican's multi-generation attacks on our health care is that between their eugenicism and their insatiable greed, their only goal is to shake us all upside down by the ankles until we go bankrupt and die, thus freeing them to worry about managing the white, wealthy, medium-sized, Protestant utopia that they hope to turn this nation into.
I wonder which insurance lobbyist suggested this idea to the regime.
Gather ‘round children because it’s time once again for Wookie Monster to tell the story of the knee replacement his insurance company refused to pay for.
I spent a year hobbling along with a walker while fighting with my insurance provider to pay for it. That’s a year of excruciating pain. When it finally did get approved, my orthopedist told me it was one of the worst knees he’d ever worked on and he was amazing I could walk on it at all.
But please tell me more about unacceptable wait times under socialism. It’s fascinating.
I'm an RN that works in a hospital - one of my favorite hospitalists (physician that does internal medicine inpatient IN the hospital) - just left to join a concierge practice. Makes me sad. Another very bright (left-leaning) physician was telling me that almost EVERY peer-to-peer phone call (about denial of care) with insurance companies ends with the insurance company getting their way.
Memories of my Jesusbot sister who suffered from cancer and had her church elders anoint her with oil and lay their hands on her to heal her in the name of Jesus. She posted that her "deep christian faith" would pull her through.
it didn't...
Mother Monster had breast cancer in her thirties that spread to her uterus. She turns 89 next month because she went to the hospital and got real medical treatment.
I’m sorry about your sister.
I had a dear family friend who got cancer and was absolutely convinced that naturopathy and crystals would pull him through. It didn't. Not the same as a sister, but I can sympathize.
Well that's a whole load of dum(b)
My insurance, United Advantage foisted on me by my pension plan, doesn't cover Vicodin apparently. I'm going to go ahead and buy it, because I need it, and file a claim. I'lll keep you guys posted.
You can eat the right foods, work out, have amazing genetics and still get hit by a car. Our minds gloss over this fact all the time.
I'm turning 50 later this year and have a grandmother(and her sister), great aunt and a great aunt(my grandfather's sister) on another part of my family tree who all died of colon cancer. My doctor was like "go get a colonoscopy", so I called the place. I've got Medicare because I'm disabled and the receptionist was so weird, saying it wouldn't be paid for because to her, I'm "not old enough yet".
I spent 30 darned minutes on the phone with her, where she would argue with me, then say nothing for 5-10 minute stretches. It was weird.
I finally said "I'll pay if Medicare doesn't", and told her my dad died of pancreatic cancer that spread to his liver. She scheduled the consultation. And you know what? Medicare paid for most of it and Medicaid paid the rest.
Sorry, had to share because during that call, I wanted to both yell and cry.
Unexpected shit happens all the time. Every time you get in your car or hop on your bike you are risking catastrophic medical expenses or death. Every time. And we all do it every single day without a second thought.
My best friend was driving home from visiting their daughter when a wrong-way drunk driver hit them head-on on I-80 at 10 pm. Drunk driver had no driver's license, no job, no insurance, no money, and 2 previous DUIs. Drunk driver went to prison.
My friend's life was saved by the airbag, but the seat belt broke her collar bone, 3 ribs and her pelvis, and ruptured her colon so badly that they had to remove 3 feet of it. Her knees hit the dashboard and broke, and all the bones in both feet fractured (she is 4'11" and very petite). Her husband's seat belt broke a couple of ribs. They were both unconscious, the car caught fire, and Good Samaritans were able to pull them from the car before they burned to death. She was in the hospital for 6 weeks.
They were self-employed and had health insurance, but it had high deductibles, and their car insurance's medical coverage wasn't as high as it should have been. They ended up having to sell their house and their business to pay their medical bills. Of course they had to buy a new car, too.
And then there is my friend Rob, whom I've written about here many times. He was riding his motorcycle at the speed limit down a major city road with a center turn lane on a sunny Saturday afternoon in September, and wearing a helmet. Stupid woman in center lane turned left immediately in front of him, his bike hit her front right fender, he flew 60 feet and hit a power pole. The guy wire sliced off his left leg and his right leg hit the pole, shattering it. He then fell to the ground and hit his head on the pavement. He would have bled to death if an E.R. nurse wasn't driving by who happened to have a first aid kit with a tourniquet.
He was in the ICU for 12 days at a cost of $16,000 per day, followed by months of rehab. He had high insurance deductibles. He lost his leg, his job, his group health insurance, his house and his mobility and had to live on $1550/mo SSDI, which was $200/mo too high to qualify for Medicaid in Missouri, so I found him a subsidized ACA plan for $50/mo. Seven years later he died of a brain tumor that developed in the exact spot where he hit his head on the pavement.