Some things I hate about health insurance

Author's note: This rant touches only lightly and breifly on the subject matter of what we hate about our health insurance. There is plenty of misconception about how and why health insurance does what it does that is not addressed here. Yet, some lobs are hit back nicely.

You ask how can an insurance stooge tell me this treatment is experimental when my doctor, an MD, has ordered it? Because the insurance stooge probably has every bit of scientific evidence and scores of professional medical specialists backing up the claim.

You say the stooge carries no liability for the consequences when care is withheld because it was not authorized. I say the medical professional behind that decision, and the insurance company he/she represents, has much to loose. They are already cast by society as the villain and like ravenous wolves we all wait with our congressmen and lawyers for one of them to be wrong.

You complain of incentives for insurance stooges who limit the most care? The fact is that this is fiction. But, what about the incentives for physicians that utilize the most pharmaceuticals or products, do the most procedures or surgeries, supply the most referrals! And incentives for suppliers that sell the most medical equipment, hospital departments with the biggest revenue, therapists doing the most treatments!

Should the insurance stooge be in the physician-patient relationship? Seems society is beginning to demand it. Use your favorite search engine for "disease management" or "care management." Who's going to know when your patient's routine tests are due, whether ornot he/she's following your prescription formedications? Maybe the stooge that's involved in thephysician-patient relationship won't need to be "askedpermission" for the sick kid to stay another day, it will already have been approved.

We, the payers of premiums, healchcare consumers, don't think we need to understand our insurance coverage benefits. That's why we have insurance, so we don't have toworry about the costs. A very irresponsible and dangerous attitude to take. We get mad when coverage for healthcare is limited or denied. And furious when we find out it's our own fault because we didn't think to understand what the coverage was in the first place.