Last time I had a surgery, I wrote "by participating in this surgery, all participants confirm they are covered under bcbs, and agree to waiver payment if not" right below the surgery site.
The doctor got a kick out of it, says apparently I 'got' one of his aides, who saw it, said his coverage was lapsed, and ask if a patient could do that. The doctor said he made him stand in the corner for 30 mins while they did my shoulder repair.
Virtually all of our politicians love it.
What amazes me is Americans doing this to themselves. Literally acting against their own best interests, putting their lives and wellbeing in the hands of companies only concerned about profit.
American health insurance? That's not how it works in other countries
I hear you. How does one pirate health insurance?
Sail the seven seas to medical tourism
Given how highly adaptable Americans are I am very surprised to not seeing more of you trying to make a life for yourself in Europe. A plane ticket to any eu country is far cheaper than an ambulance ride to er...
And then having to send emails back and forth for months talking to several people, taking days off work and spending hours on the phone for clearance to watch stranger things and having it be denied because of some obscure reason that is going to take you several more days off work to try to get clearance to watch the show again
And if you don't watch Stranger Things, you die.
Yep because you got fired for missing too much work and lost your Netflix. This was Netflix’s plan the entire time
All this while being sick like a dog.
Americans are amazing. Their healthcare system is literally killing them and ruining their families, and they keep talking about how bad "socialism" is...
The amount of bullshit this people buy is incredible.
TBF a shitload of us know how socialized health care works. We want it.
There’s a massive, massive industry that is working very hard to make sure that it doesn’t happen.
10 years ago, we almost had medicare for all as a public healthcare option. We were soooo close. But congress fucked it up necause they were lobbied by ins companies who knew everyone with a brain would flock to the public option.
10 years ago, we almost had medicare for all as a public healthcare option.
The ACA was 15 years ago, and it wasn't even remotely close to Medicare for all. It was a halfassed Heritage Foundation policy that wouldn't cover everyone before just enough members of the Democratic caucus killed the public option, which was the intent from the very start.
And what the insurance companies got instead was literally a law forcing everyone to buy their shitty products. Imagine the tobacco companies being so successful at lobbying that they got a law passed requiring everybody to smoke.
Living amongst these people is a baffling and frustrating experience.
Just imagine living in a first world country where they provide free Netflix instead of maintaining an insanely large military.
As an American, I'd rather die a preventable death then share free healthcare with someone I don't think deserves it! /s
How dare someone who is dying of cancer and is too sick to work anymore get free Netflix! They can work for it like everyone else! I'm not subsidizing their Netflix /s
Maybe we should try voting harder for representatives that are owned by the corrupt insurance companies and their shareholders
Maybe we should vote against them in the kabuki primaries.
It's much worse because you can choose not to watch Netflix but you don't have much choice if you are sick.
It's more like receiving a bill for songs you hear on the radio in the grocery store, on the bus, in other people's cars passing by. You didn't ask for the benefit, could not really negotiate it, but it was useful to you when you got it. You could maybe avoid it by not leaving your house.
After recently apartment hunting, I have a (slightly tangential) gripe to add on here.
When I was getting my income verification (to prove I could afford the proposed rent), it went off gross income - what you make before taxes and so-called “benefits” are taken out. The hundreds I pay each month for the “benefit” of being insured make a significant difference between what I make and what I take home. Do I make 3x a given rent? Well technically, by gross income, I do. But my net income is where that rent payment comes from, so the chunk of my take-home going toward rent is absolutely higher than 1/3 of the net income I can actually use.
I have no choice but to pay for this “benefit.” Notice I keep using quotation marks. That’s because I think the term is bullshit. I think a work-sponsored benefit should be something work provides. Yeah, maybe they got a “deal” to offer insurance to employees for lower than it’d cost to buy for ourselves, but come on. If work really wanted to call it a “benefit,” they should pay us more so the numbers even out on our take-home. We’re forced into these situations, yet employers have the nerve to use a term that implies they’re offering some special bonus to us.
Okay, enough ranting for now. No, wait - prescriptions! That’s another health-related cost that isn’t deducted, that I still have to pay for, despite having insurance.
The screws keep tightening around us workers and there’s no escape. I really hope Mamdani sparks inspiration across the country, because this shit is untenable.
https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-lie
Basically, stuff that used to be cheap has been turned into “markets” and now the entire middle class is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
Fantastic article! I’m bookmarking it to share.
The guy has a wonderfully idiosyncratic writing style. None of what he says is in any way new (there are videos on YouTube of Sen Warren saying the exact same things from 2008-2010 or so), but it’s certainly an interesting read.
So this sucks but you can avoid this with a simple trick. Call your insurance company first with the CPT codes for what you need done and where you plan to get it done. Your doctors office can give you the codes. They aren’t a trade secret or anything. Get diagnoses codes too if you can. Have the insurance company run the codes for you before you go. This does a couple things:
Ideally, we would have single payer insurance, but we instead have a government that pays itself to make private enterprise do its job, then the shareholders in that private enterprise make sure nothing ever gets changed. -sigh-
In the mean time, if you really want to fuck them over, consider switching to health insurance company that does not have shareholders. In many states, they are legally mandated to refund any profit they make over a certain percentage at the end of the year and without shareholders, it’s harder to hide the money, which puts much more pressure on them to spend it on patient care.
United Health Care want you to believe their way is the only way to do this. They are wrong. A shareholder-free insurer still isn’t perfect but the pressures are different without the parasites.
The fact you have to jump through these hoops at all IS FUCKING STUPID AND ISNT HOW IT SHOULD WORK.
Agreed. But the fact is there is a lot of money in paying for medical expenses that keep going higher and not a lot of money going to the pot that pays it out. Single payer would address all of that instantly but the rich would be unhappy so we basically have to pay a survival tax to insurance companies every month.
I hate it here.
It's like they've made the system so convoluted that you have to be an underwriter to receive services.
Any tips on finding an insurance company in your state that doesn't have shareholders? A big part of the insurance issue is that you have to practically be an industry insider to navigate... Anything in insurance, really.
and the rest of the economy is heading in this direction soon. Rent seeking needs to be outlawed
In Taiwan, I pay for Universal Healthcare because I own a business. 5800nt(185usd) every 2 months for a familyof 4. It would be 3000nt(100usd)for 2 months if it's just myself.
The copay is 10usd for everything. Fever? Food poisoning? Chemotherapy? All the same cost. This includes all the medications and all incidental costs.
If you worked for a Taiwan company, you don't have to pay the 5800nt. But the copay is the same.
How about when the website explicitly says your subscription covers Stranger Things, but you watch Stranger Things, and they then bill you $80.
Then you follow the steps to dispute it on their website. And they say they didn't make any mistakes. Then you do the follow-up appeal via snail-mail and they say that there's still nothing wrong.
(My experience with UHC and a cholesterol test)
It's not stupid, it's nefarious. Free Luigi!
I stopped paying for health insurance years ago, no way I can afford it now. I just get it through my state system.
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