US Health Insurance is Bullshit

[Moonface]

So I just lost my health insurance for the rest of the year because despite me working 1500 hours last year to be eligible, this year I won't get 1500 hours. But rather than drop me at the end of the year, they've dropped me as of two weeks ago. I can keep it if I fork over $411.66 a month, but why would I do that when I've only used my health insurance once this year so far?

It gets better though. Next weekend I have an echocardiogram but now I have no insurance for it. I have no idea what it's going to cost me. Probably less than $411.66 though.

Oh and I can't get a cheap deal on insurance because I'm married and my wife should subsidise me like a child dependent.

Anyone who defends this shit system should get into a medical situation that bankrupts them so they can see how stupid it really is. As the thread title says, it's bullshit.

/rant

[Dragon Lord]

Yep. Welcome to America, where they steal from the poor and give to the rich.

What's funny, and I think I might have talked about this before, but I'm too lazy to go to the first page to check, is that everyone bitched about "Obamacare" because it was a terrible health insurance system (and I do agree that taxing people for not being able to get healthcare was stupid), but it's the only time that I've actually been able to get health insurance that didn't cost me hundreds of dollars a month to have. After Trump started to repeal things that Obama put in place, the only insurance plans I'm eligible for are ones that would cost me $200+ a month and only start actually covering me after I've spent almost $2,000 on medical bills already (I believe I have mentioned this part of it before). Insurance has just gotten such crap since that clown Trump took over. He keeps talking about how he's going to put such an amazing insurance policy in place, and yet here we are, still waiting for it four years later. Oh wait, that's right, he's keep our insurance system hostage right now so that he can try to use it as leverage to win the 2020 election (if anyone recalls, he stated that if he doesn't win the election he will completely abolish the health care act and leave the country with no health insurance plan for the non-rich who can't afford the bills).

[ShiraNoMai]

I would add Moony to my health insurance plan if my work covered anyone other than the employees. They offer the plans, but you get no discount towards it, so instead of paying what I normally pay (like, $160 every 2 weeks), I'd be paying like $800 a month.

My beef right now is this whole insurance bullshit started in the first place because they wanted people to get it through their employers and yet HERE WE ARE, NOT BEING COVERED BY OUR EMPLOYERS.

I agree that Obamacare at least did some things right. I wish the Republicans in Congress at the time didn't nerf the bill to hell before they finally passed it, which is why it turned out kinda shitty in the end, but it was better than nothing.

Still hoping for a day we get universal health care, but I'll be dead and in the grave before we finally see that passed at this rate 

[Mr EliteL]

I thought I already posted in here, but seriously f***....I mean FUCK your health insurance. Hate reading what you guys have to put up with when I'm sitting here comfortable and at the moment not need anything apart from stuff I can get from a counter/supermarket. I only needed one thing prescribed recently...well a one time thing and that was like two years ago. Glad I'm quite a healthy boi.

[Moonface]

I'm generally healthy enough to rarely need a medical appointment more than maybe twice a year. I'm just really annoyed this time because my current insurance was cheap and got cancelled out of the blue a week before my echocardiogram appointment, so I now have to pay for that out of pocket and pray it isn't some absurd amount.

[Karo]

But Moony didn't you read in the fine print unchecked capitalism is what make America truly great! Land of the free where people can't go to the doctor cause they don't want to go bankrupt!

[Moonface]

Land of the free where people can't go to the doctor cause they don't want to go bankrupt!

You could go bankrupt even with insurance and savings if you get the wrong illness. I've seen stories of people who did everything exactly as the system says they should to be ready for a medical disaster (i.e. cancer) and even with a huge amount of money at the ready for that occasion they still went to complete shit when it finally hit them.

I feel really bad for international students with insurance though. You can't work at a business as an international student, and it's very unlikely your school is going to insure you and I wouldn't be surprised if things like Medicaid are only applicable to residents and citizens, of which an international student is neither, so what would they even be able to get? Unless you got yourself an absolute belter of a job after graduation like at Pixar, Google, etc. I don't see why anyone wouldn't just go back to their home country for a job in the field except for cases where their home country just isn't good enough to offer that at all.

[Moonface]

So I didn't think I'd ever need to come back to this thread, but apparently there's more about US health insurance I didn't know about which is just awful at worst, and outright confusing at best.

I went to the doctor yesterday. My insurance covers it and just gets me to do a copay. Fine, no problem there, I'm saving money because this insurance is free from my work thanks to Covid so anything less than full price is a win for me. The doctor prescribes me some medicine, which I go to pick up today from my store after I finish work. I get told the medication costs $140, but that's the out of pocket cost, so my insurance will bring that down once I apply it.

This is where things stop being fine.

I hand over my insurance card, and after running it the pharmacist tells me that it's the wrong card. It turns out that my particular insurance has a separate card for prescriptions, which I do not have because I was never sent one. Now, that's not meant to imply I don't have pharmacy coverage. I do, I was just never given one, and so I'm told I should call the number on my card to ask for the details of the missing card. I call the number, and get the following response: "Due to a higher than usual number of calls due to the ongoing pandemic, all of our operatives are busy at this time and so you will need to wait for the next available operative. Do not hang up otherwise you will lose your current position in the hold line. In the meantime, please listen to the following options to help us narrow down your issue and get you connected to the most suitable operative."

I spent roughly 10 minutes going through menus because of how much shit there is to listen to when hearing all the options for each stage, and at the end of it I get this: "None of our operatives are currently available. Our offices are only open Monday through Friday, 8am to 8pm. You may leave a message for us to get back to you."

My complaint here would apply for any call of this nature, and isn't exclusively a health insurance issue (I do have one of those though hence why I'm here), but why does any company feel the need to claim everyone is busy at the start of a call, and then throw you through a dozen menus to tell you at the end it was all a waste of time because no one is ever going to answer? Tell me at the start that no one is there! Then, you can offer me options to hear pre-recorded help messages that might assist with my issue if I feel so inclined.

So I give up with that, and instead call the company that actually supplies the health insurance (the first number is for the insurance operatives that are for employees of my job), and tell them that I need the card details. No dice, I get told to call the prescription card company. I call them, get told to call the person I had just called. Basically, A wants me to call B, B wants me to call A, so I'm not getting anywhere.

An hour I spent making calls and trying to find other ways to get these details, and in the end I give up and just decide I'll pay the $140, and make a claim for reimbursement.

Pharmacist tells me they found a coupon and the price is now $34.95, and so I say fine, and don't worry about giving me a claim form because I just don't care anymore if I'm saving $100+. "Oh, well if you went through your insurance it would actually cost more."

Excuse the fuck out of me?!

A coupon works out cheaper than using insurance? So if my insurance had actually worked by using one card like a logical being would expect it to, I'd have still been ripped off?! If I lacked insurance and just paid the $140 instantly, I would've been ripped off because the coupon wouldn't have entered the discussion. If the coupon is cheaper, that should be the default option, and it should just be the price of the drug regardless of whether you personally need to find the coupon. Nobody is browsing a coupon book of prescription drugs and thinking "Ooh, this other drug I don't need nor have a script for is on sale, I'll pick me up some of that!" like they would browsing the coupon page of a grocery store and spotting other good food deals that you can just grab off the shelf with no restrictions. So even with insurance, you can still get dicked over because now you have to look for coupons for your scripts to see if it's actually better to not use it. WHY?!

[Metallix]

I actually have decent health insurance now but I'd like to put in my two cents. Hospitals are corrupt as shit and owned by the medical industrial complex. Health is supposed to be private but they sell your data anyway. Plus doctors at these places just push drugs most of the time even when it isn't needed. I broke my back once and I was prescribed pain meds like everything was fine when IT WAS not. My chiropractor told me it was a slipped disc.

Universal healthcare isn't the answer, getting the corruption out of the equation is. Government run programs are ALWAYS worse than privately run programs. I worked in healthcare and these manufacturers charged 40xs the price consumer goods just because it was sold as medical supplies. A freaking rubber hose with spray nozzle was $160 to replace. It's price gouging because they know they need it.

Also this isn't just a problem with health insurance, ALL insurance is slimy. Auto insurance is just as bad.

[Moonface]

Jeez, what did you do to break your back @Metallix if you don't mind me asking?

Yeah, I agree on the corruption thing, especially since it really goes hand in hand with the government (since companies pay them to allow this to happen) so switching the healthcare to government only won't really solve the problems because those companies will still give money to those politicians as support in return for getting things done their way in healthcare but under the guise of government.

There just needs to be a system that stops anyone from charging absolutely insane amounts of money on anything they can get away with charging it for. Regardless of what the system is, people shouldn't be declining an ambulance just to avoid the astronomical cost that comes with it, just to give an example.

[Metallix]

Jeez, what did you do to break your back @Metallix if you don't mind me asking?

Yeah, I agree on the corruption thing, especially since it really goes hand in hand with the government (since companies pay them to allow this to happen) so switching the healthcare to government only won't really solve the problems because those companies will still give money to those politicians as support in return for getting things done their way in healthcare but under the guise of government.

There just needs to be a system that stops anyone from charging absolutely insane amounts of money on anything they can get away with charging it for. Regardless of what the system is, people shouldn't be declining an ambulance just to avoid the astronomical cost that comes with it, just to give an example.

To be honest I am not sure. At the time I did a lot of lifting, I possibly lifted wrong. Probably lifted something and twisted rather than turning with my feet but I was out for a month and half but was still prescribed pain meds and told that's all I needed despite barely being able to walk.

The thing I hate the most is you're supposed to have doctor patient confidentiality and for certain things that's true but these large health companies will sell anything and everything they can which usually gets to your insurance company in some way or another.

[Moonface]

Surely if your insurance company finds out about things they're not supposed to know you can instantly file a HIPPA violation against the doctor that told them, which wouldn't be hard to track down.

[Karo]

The thing about the healthcare industry one thing I think that would really fix it is getting rid of the for profit should healthcare really be a frickin business? I know they need money to make more and money to make enough of the medicine to cover everyone, but should it not be affordable to the common person? If in America you are suppose to be free and be able to pursue happiness wouldn't it come natural that worrying about your medical bills fucking bankrupt you not be part of America?

I tend to support universal healthcare myself, but I also agree with Metallix that the corruption in the government really must be sorted out first, the thing is it just a vicious cycle of companies paying off the government resulting in shittier deals for everyone but the two. I don't really trust privatization of medicine because that where it got us to where we are everything is insanely expensive for shittier services, but if the universal healthcare thing I do think we'd have a shitty service, but it might be more manageable.

The government won't let the medical industry screw them, but I bet it also going to be very picky about what it potentially will cover and not cover like our current insurances and the sad thing is just due to the nature of our government there probably going to be a lot of shitty back and forth between the republicans and democrats fighting eachother...but hey the prices shouldn't keep rising is my hope.

[Metallix]

The thing about the healthcare industry one thing I think that would really fix it is getting rid of the for profit should healthcare really be a frickin business? I know they need money to make more and money to make enough of the medicine to cover everyone, but should it not be affordable to the common person? If in America you are suppose to be free and be able to pursue happiness wouldn't it come natural that worrying about your medical bills fucking bankrupt you not be part of America?

I tend to support universal healthcare myself, but I also agree with Metallix that the corruption in the government really must be sorted out first, the thing is it just a vicious cycle of companies paying off the government resulting in shittier deals for everyone but the two. I don't really trust privatization of medicine because that where it got us to where we are everything is insanely expensive for shittier services, but if the universal healthcare thing I do think we'd have a shitty service, but it might be more manageable.

The government won't let the medical industry screw them, but I bet it also going to be very picky about what it potentially will cover and not cover like our current insurances and the sad thing is just due to the nature of our government there probably going to be a lot of shitty back and forth between the republicans and democrats fighting eachother...but hey the prices shouldn't keep rising is my hope.

But if the pharmaceutical companies are writing the laws that benefit them because politicians are being paid off, it can't really be called privatized medicine. At that point it's another arm of the government.

I don't think there is any "perfect" solution but I'm of the opinion that anything run by the government directly or indirectly is inefficient and wasteful. We have a separation of church and state, I think a separation of medicine and state needs to be a thing as well. Of course a completely hands off approach would not be good either so maybe we need to start over completely?

[Moonface]

If nothing else, there just needs to be regulation. I find all the pricing to be rather absurd, but when someone gets diagnosed with diabetes their bank account is going up in flames because of the cost, and that's just simply unfair when they need that insulin to not die or get further health complications that cost more money they likely don't have if they didn't get the insulin in the first place, and if nothing else happened I'd love to see things like that not be allowed to happen. I would hate to be diagnosed with a condition in America where I require medication or I could die (not cancers and such necessarily, I mean conditions like diabetes, asthma, etc.), and it really hurts to know that the guy who invented insulin never patented it because he believed everyone should have it and it not be pay walled, yet here we are with that.