These are the stories the President needs to tell.

I would just like it if people didn't die because the insurance company found some flimsy pretext to drop or deny coverage.

 

Fine, it can be tweaked to cover preventative care.

But Y'all have to see everything being free being horrifically abused, right?

Again, the destitute get everything free, as long as that can be shown. Everyone else gets the bill: up to $5,000.

If you don't like that exposure, I'm sure you can buy alternative insurance to cover that, also; albeit that would be through typical health insurance premium entities.

 

But it's not just the poor. There are very few families in the US... even upper middle class and lower upper class... who could handle a major illness or accident by themselves.

When the Bankruptcy Bill was a hot topic I think I remember that the greatest cause of bankruptcy in the US is the high costs of medical bills to cover a major illness.

 

Reactions like this are how we end up having the unhelpful back and forths we're seeing on this topic

 

But your one liners have a history of significant impact, germinating meaningful discussion and expanding mental horizons.

Agree with the thadeus, as my cancer-surviving friend, with "good insurance" now has had to cover her own surgery, since her insurance company weaseled out of it. She's lost her job now anyway, and is an extra $20k in debt. These are real people, everywhere you look.

By the way, I kind of like fatty's proposal. It is something like a flat tax with a few wrinkles. $5k is tough, but you could really focus on covering the big stuff. There would also be pressure to hold down costs on routine things, just to get the business! Right now, the economic pressure is for the medical industry to make every $25 line item cost $225 because they try to bill the insurance company anyway. If people are saying "I'll skip that damned pill for $225," you could get more of an actual market, which is what all the please-don't-socialize-mah-medisun! people want, right?

I will repeat my proposal that, like certain residential real estate developers have to do, you have insurance companies required to cover a certain subset of needy people at or below cost, just as a price for doing business.

 

Taken at face value, the examples given in this thread are obviously terrible and steps should be taken to prevent that.

However, I can tell you from experience that these sorts of things are very often NOT about "flimsy pretext" and are instead about material misrepresentation on the part of the individual.

It's also worth nothing that in the State of Texas if you are on an employer sponsored true medical plan the insurance company can not rescind coverage, nor can it deny claims based on pre-existing conditions if you've had prior insurance coverage.

You can argue all you want about whether you think that's fair or not, but it is a necessary evil to prevent people from abusing the system by declining coverage until the need arises.

 

I actually propose the following:

1) Allow small businesses to band together again to purchase insurance as small employer groups. By turning small groups of 3-10 employees into larger blocks of 50+ employees, the rates will be lower.

2) Institute a national "opt-in" basic health plan. Covers 1 preventive care treatment per year and then works like a dental plan. Major services are covered on a fee for service basis. This will allow people to get some preventive care and still have something to fall back on to cover major medical expenses to some extent, while still leaving personal responsibility in place and still allowing people to buy in to good group coverage with better insurance options.

 

What are they trying to "get" here exactly? The flimsy pretext in the personal case I'm citing was a doctor saying that a tumor had to be removed immediately, and the insurance company saying "oh not so fast there, missy! we see what you're up to. That has to be approved 90 days in advance. No coverage for you, trickster!"

Are you talking about cosmetic surgery, or people trying to oxycontin, or what?

Being sick sucks. Why should it be a shell game to get health care?

 

No. I'm talking about coverage rescission for failure to disclose on an application. I've dealt with customers who have lied about their weight on applications, lied about visiting a doctor who told them he thought they had diabetes, etc.

 

Okay. Probably a lot of people lie about smoking too.

I like your suggestions, by the way, in post #28

 

So...

Insurance company enters into a void where people can't afford their medical care and tries to provide them a funding mechanism. In order to do this, they require people to provide them medical information and not lie about conditions they have going in. People who can't afford what doctors/hopsitals will charge them without insurance LIE to the insurance companies about conditions and end up losing coverage later.

That's the insurance company's failure?

 

I don't even think he understood what I meant but he just got mad because he heard the the "Joe the Plumber".

 

Please, feel free to explain what you 'meant'. It must be terribly complex.

 

They do. I know why they do it, but it shouldn't be surprising when an insurance company doesn't want to pay a claim on something you lied to them about, or worse, isn't willing to pay for a surgery you want to have next week when you just got the policy last month. Those type of people hurt the system.

 

No, the insurance company's job is to make as much profit as possible by any means that it can utilize without getting sued. They do that rather well.

The failure is the system that allows insurance companies to essentially sentence people to death - and while some people may lie on the application (I lied on mine! ha ha **** you insurance companies, I'm still alive because I lied!) many more are rejected for 'erroneous information' such as listing oneself as a few pounds lighter, or maybe neglecting to mention the time you had a cold when you were 5, or you forget your grandma's exact street address, and so on.

The fact is, if you have to lie to a massive faceless corporation in order to stay a fully-functioning human being then you're damn well gonna lie. I defy even the staunchest town-hall screamer to be in this situation and do otherwise ... maybe if one of their children was the one who was going to get treatment or get denied it'd put the reality of this in perspective.

Insurance companies have entire wings of bureaucrats whose sole job is to find reasons to reject insurance claims. Apparently, they're quite good at this.

The failure is with a system that allows profit-driven and ethically rotten corporations to determine who gets to be healthy and who gets to die early.

 

This whole post is a lie/exaggeration.

The majority of claims are paid. The majority of sick people who get insurance don't get denied coverage.

There are isolated incidents of obvious corruption on the part of insurance companies, but despite this thread, they are not very common.

Sentence people to death? Maybe we should get rid of insurance all together and you can try paying for your healthcare on your own, since insurance companies are the devil!

 

None of this is a lie, and none of it is exagerration. I'm glad you find it convenient to believe that and can go on supporting a system that causes innocent people to die due to lack of funds. Congrats, the world is just fine - just as you've always believed it is. Strange that after all of this you'd arrive at the same conclusions you've held all along.

Here it is again: If I had not lied on my insurance form I would be dead right now. I'm alive because I lied to an insurance company.

The free market is a myth, but keep on believing. I'm done.

 

I wonder that too... what would health care look like if you got rid of all the people who don't provide any health care?