28th
If A Man Can’t Declare Medical Bankruptcy, This Isn’t America
I hate to break this to you, folks, but your health insurance is already “socialist.”
Consider two employees who both participate in the company health plan, which means that both of them have a certain amount of money taken out of their paychecks every month. Employee A goes running four nights a week, tries to keep his diet organic, doesn’t smoke and limits his drinking to an occasional glass of wine. The most exercise Employee B gets is when he strains his way through a particularly troublesome bowel movement. He has a gut so big that he hasn’t seen his penis in years. His idea of “organic” is when he decides to not wrap his Shake N Baked pork chop in bacon. He smokes a pack and a half of unfiltered Lucky Strikes a day and drinks vodka tonics by the bucketful.
Which of these two employees do you think is going to have to actually use the health insurance the most? Yet you don’t really hear Employee A screaming and crying about how unfair it is that his hard earned premium payments are paying for Fatass McGillycuddy’s eventual triple bypass surgery. Do those of you who take care of yourselves call your insurance companies and demand a purge of the unfit and unwell? You probably don’t. You keep paying the premiums, even if you have no need to use your health insurance at all. You and a large group of other people, some of whom are like Employee A and some who are like Employee B, are pooling your resources through an insurance company, who will (in theory anyway) then pay for your medical costs with that pooled money in the event that you get sick or injured. And yes, Employee B is more of a strain on those resources than Employee A, but still, it is a collective financial effort, you see, in which many people contribute for the good of the whole.
Got that, Comrade? Feel like a loyal fellow traveler yet?
Of course, it isn’t run of the mill socialism, mainly because people are making buckets and buckets and buckets of money off of the deal. Oh, and also, in many cases, this “coverage” amounts to absolutely dick. Claims are denied routinely, whether there is just cause or not. People get dropped when it appears that they might actually start costing the insurers money. Insurance companies, if I may steal a line from Winston Churchill, “rent you umbrellas and then demand them back when it starts to rain.”
It isn’t a joke. Sixty two percent of the people who filed for bankruptcy in 2007 did so because of medical bills. Eighty percent of these folks who filed for bankruptcy had medical insurance. So, you know, I’m kind of wondering what the hell the point of even having that insurance is in the first place.
The main concern of the folks on the right seems to be that we will be providing health care without making a few people extremely rich, which apparently falls under the category of “blood soaked communist tyranny.” But I think it’s more about making sure that everybody doesn’t go broke, which to me is a damn sight more important than keeping a few people rich.
The horror stories don’t scare me. The idea of waiting lists? Hmmm. Let’s see. I can have an expensive procedure now, which my insurance company will then refuse to pay for, leaving me well but bankrupt and destitute, or I can wait for a few months and then have the procedure, which will then be paid for by my government run healthcare system. I’ll take my chances and wait, thanks.
The idea that there won’t be any doctors because they won’t be able to go skinny dipping in big piles of money doesn’t make sense, either. Doctors are currently getting ripped off just as hard as patients by insurance companies. In fact, most doctors have a team of secretaries who’s only function is to handle appeals of rejected claims, which happen not occasionally but every time. In fact, some doctors just say to hell with it and demand cash up front. Almost every doctor I have spoken with has talked about how much easier it is to get paid by Medicare and Medicaid than it is trying to squeeze anything out of United Health Care.
Insurers like to cry and complain about fraud, and there surely is some of that, but that doesn’t justify at least one cost denial of every single claim. That lab test? Not necessary. Denied. That x-ray? Not necessary. Denied. That prescription? Not on our pre-approved list and also not necessary. Denied. That operation? That was a matter of choice. Denied.
These decisions for denial are not made by medical professionals, by the way. They are made by adjusters in cubicles who are simply doing what the software on their screen tells them to do. And that software tells them to deny, deny, deny. In fact, adjusters are actually rewarded with bonuses and perks if they keep payouts down. That’s capitalism, y’all. Cutting costs is fine and dandy when you are manufacturing coffee makers or widgets. But this isn’t coffee makers or widgets. It’s paying for your health care. But that cuts into the bottom line, you see. So deny, deny, deny.
It isn’t just refusing to treat bodily illness, either. This system also keeps insane people from receiving easy and effective treatment. In Canada, that godless socialist freedom hating prison to our north, a person who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia is simply given a card that states his condition. When the prescription for lithium or risperdal or whatever runs out they can go to any drug store, present the card, and get the prescription re-filled. Here in God’s Country, a mental patient must make an appointment with a doctor every month to get that prescription, and then the doctor has to send the bill to the insurance company, which might pay it or might not. There are so many crucial questions involved. Is the patient a danger to himself or others? Is he going to hurt somebody or will he just be a harmless kook? Will he make the community miserable or just his family? Is it cost effective for us to continue coverage for a condition that can’t be cured but only treated? That gets expensive. Our stock is down. Later for this guy. So that dude who lives under the overpass by the exit on 395? He’s not a tragedy. He’s a living symbol of the triumph of market forces. A walking lesson in economic theory. The office manager of the adjusters who rejected him had an office Pizza Party as a reward, which provided business to the local Domino’s. The manager himself was given a $500 bonus at the end of the quarter, which he spent at the local titty bar, which helped local liquor distributors and all those girls “working their way through school.” And all of this extra money that goes to Domino’s and liquor distributors and dancers can all be put towards their insurance premiums. It’s trickle down economics at it’s finest. So the next time you see the schizophrenic who couldn’t make it through that economy stimulating obstacle course to get to his medication, be sure to shake his hand and thank him for his contribution to what makes our nation great. But do it real slow and careful like. Otherwise the voices might tell him that you are part of the Intergalactic Conspiracy of Planet Zaltar.
You could take insurance companies to court, but why bother? They have all the time and money in the world. They have in house counsel. They can file appeal after appeal. They can grind it out and wait you out with the greatest of ease. You, on the other hand, have all those medical bills to worry about, and they aren’t going to go away over the thirty six months that it will take for the case to go through court. You might get a settlement, but only after you have lost your house and had your credit rating torpedoed. Best of luck to you.
You could do the All American capitalist thing and “take your business elsewhere,” but where are you going to go? To another private, profit-driven insurance company that behaves the same way?
So the best thing to do is to just keep playing the lottery with these guys, and really learn to enjoy that thrilling feeling when you open the bill and realize that although they didn’t pay for everything like they said they were going to do, they at least paid for a few things, and that’s better than nothing, right? I mean, your savings won’t be totally wiped out. Just mostly. Not like those poor bastards without insurance, huh?
Glenn Beck and other numbnuts like him drape a flag over themselves and burst into tears and claim that “healthcare isn’t a right,” but they couldn’t be more incorrect. It’s been a right ever since they made it illegal for hospitals to refuse treatment over lack of money. And do you know what else is a right in this country? The right to not get ripped off. Insurance is the only business in the world where it is completely okay to demand money for services and then only provide those services if it’s financially convenient. It is a scam of the highest order. It is the mafia with executives and corporate retreats.
I say bring on the waiting lists. Bring on all the horror stories. Even if they all come true, which I don’t think they will, it couldn’t possibly be worse than it is now.
