Boycotting the Health Insurance Industry

Health insurance is not a right.

What we need is tort reform to prevent doctors from being sued for frivolous things (*cough* John Edwards *cough*)

Plus, we need to prevent illegal aliens from raping our hospital systems by coming in when they just have a runny nose.

I hate the health insurance system. It's truly horrific.

For a while as a teen I didn't have insurance and my mom is still in debt because of the bills wracked up during that period for me.

I was on my father's insurance from my late teens until I turned 21 and he had awesome government insurance (he works for the FAA). The insurance covered nearly everything and that was a huge thing because of my medical issues. Once his insurance dropped me, I was uninsured again.

Work didn't have to provide me with insurance, so of course they didn't. And because of my medical issues, I was summarily rejected by every health insurance plan known to man. One agent even told me I was just wasting my time because with the mortality rate, no insurance company would even come close to me. I think she was on crack, but she did have at least the "wouldn't come close to me" part right.

I could have applied for some type of insurance that is for very high risk patients, but it was way more expensive than I could afford and didn't cover half of what I needed.

Now, I have insurance through work. It still costs a fortune, but the alternative of being uninsured and having to have routine MRIs and CT scans and all that crap is far worse.

"Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you." - Kahlil Gibran

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." Isaac Asimov

The owrld is not perfect and stuff happens that is out of our control. The are ways to get around problems and ways to deal with them.

What are your thoughts on the health insurance industry?
It is in dire need of reform. Before I got kicked off of my mother's health insurance because of my age, my general practitioner had some suspicious moles biopsied, and the lab results showed that they were precancerous. I have probably twenty such moles scattered over my body, the result of a childhood spent in the tropics without adequate protection from the sun's harmful rays. So I arranged outpatient surgery with a dermatologist to have these moles removed while I still had insurance, but come to find out the health insurance company would not cover the procedure if I had more than six of the moles removed during any one visit. Why? I don't know - insurance logic I suppose.

Do you think insurance is worth the cost, or should it be less expensive?
I've not been able to afford it since I was kicked off my mother's policy, so I would be inclined to say that it is indeed too expensive. That is not to say that I'm certain that it would be worth the cost even if the cost were minimal.

Are you or have you ever been without health insurance?
I haven't had health insurance since I reached the age of twenty-one (which, mind you, is two years shy of the age of emancipation in my state). That was three years ago, and I here I am without health insurance.

Tid-bits concerning my un-insured life:
I didn't have my wisdom teeth removed before I was old enough to legally imbibe alcohol, back when I had dental insurance coverage. And so now, like an infant, day by day I'm growing in new teeth. Unfortunately, my bottom wisdom teeth are impacted. Eventually this is going to start to hurt, and I will have to go into debt to get my mouth fixed.
My husband has not had health insurance for quite some time either. During this wholly un-insured period of our married life he became stricken with appendicitis. The kind folks at Baptist Hospital restored him to a state of health to the tune of $14,000.00. That's over one-third of our annual income before taxes, and wasn't including the physicians' bills or the lab fee.
I shell out $1,000 each year for a gynecological examination, lab fees, and prescription oral contraceptives.

Please don't misunderstand: my complaint is not that these things cost money. I understand that medical care cannot be free, and I do not expect to be provided a service for no charge. My problem is that I don't see the function of the health insurance industry. It seems to exist only to inflate the cost of health care services for the end consumer.

Wow. I'm ashamed that I haven't realized this before.

Thanks for making me think.

/jkh

I paid the high cost of health insurance and regret it. I have never been so shocked in my life to find out I had to end up filing bankruptcy after being in the hospital several times and Blue Cross would only pay a small fraction of the cost. I was paying an outrageous amount to get the "best" they had to offer. Thought it would be well worth it. No!!! I had to file bankruptcy.

If I were to do it all over again, I would not buy the insurance.

One reason is that if I get hurt on the job, workers comp will cover that eventually(may have to wait around on the court system to grant your settlement, however).

Another reason is if something does happen and you end up needing medical treatment, the insurance isn't going to pay nearly all of that expense.

Also the insurance company may try to say the condition was a pre-existing condition---which boils down to they think something was wrong with you before they sold you the insurance and they won't pay a dime to help you.

If you have to go to the doctor, pay for it with cash out- of- pocket and get a receipt or write a check; it may be tax-deductible(after a certain amount, it is; but I think the amount is quite high).

You will be way better off not buying any type of insurance. Sometimes you may need to get a tooth filled or glasses or get a prescription for antibiotics , so be prepared and set aside a little to cover this type of emergency- it'll pay off in the long-run. Make a few investments-cd or something to help build up your emergency fund. But forget the insurance companies because they aren't worth the cost in the long run. I was paying almost $300 for BCBS per month seven years ago. The prescription places hated to see me coming because the BCBS would not approve the full cost of my drugs and they got stuck for the money since I didn't have it to pay them either. I thought I had it safely covered when I had this insurance, but found out that when I needed it, it wasn't what I expected. I would hate to see you throwing away your hard-earned cash thinking you were protected when in fact you are being fooled. There are some articles about this sort of thing on the web that you might want to check out before making your decision. Good luck!
"In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool."
Lord Chesterfield

"The doors of wisdom are never shut."
Benjamin Franklin

I am of the firm belief that the health care industry should be non-profit. As a future doctor, I'm not going into medicine because I want to make lots of money. I'm going into medicine for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with money. It's just a nice bonus.

It is ridiculous that we cannot come up with a better system. Universal health care is the way to go, but we need to find a better way to implement it. Check out Dennis Kucinich's plan, and let me know what you think.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/10/05/DI200...