Caught between health insurance and a hard place...

[Javaman]

so where I work, we currently have aetna. We used to have united health care. UHC sucked. I got nothing but horror stories from various docs I wanted to see when I mentioned UHC. They told me that UHC never paid their bills.

So when my job switched to aetna, I wasn't exactly delighted but at least, from what I understood, paid their bills.

So this week, I get the infamous message out of our HR dept. "we are switching plans". Sigh. To, guess who? UHC.

:banghead:

While driving home the other day, I heard on the radio, that aetna had lost 28% of their stock value and were going to raise their rates.

So my job switched back to UHC. In a panic, I called my doc to see if he accepted UHC. Yes, thank god.

Why do I have to live like this? Why do I have to have the choices as to how I get my health insurance made by a faceless group of people that hand down an edict?

Who in their fucking right mind would love this? (I mean other than the insurance corps)

It really doesn't take more than a thimble full of brains to see how truly fucked up this is.

I have a theory why people are so easily lead to slaughter when it comes to being against the public option.

In this nation, unless you are uberwealthy, the average family never talks about finances with their kids. We are never taught that finances are just a part of life. They should be embraced. taught and freely discussed. Instead, they are generally talked about parent to parent in hushed tones as if they are talking about cancer treatment.

The same comes to health care. It has been held, until recently that is, as an almost taboo topic. Rather than embracing it and discussing it, the right wants to keep it this topic taboo. That allows the powers that be (read insurance corps), to dictate what they think "is best for us". Never trust anyone who says, "I'm looking out for your own best interests", generally they never are. But more so amusing is this concept, the right wing fringe ball licking tea baggers who want that; "go it alone homesteading no government interference all American way of life", seem to have no problem with corporations dictating to them what is "in the best interests".

So, as bizarre as it sounds, the right wing is of the belief that government is bad but corporations are good, but, they champion any right wing nut senator who "speak his or her mind" as being good.

so to them, is it some government is good as long as it's reactionary?

man, it makes me crazy. All I know is, I'm going back to a plan I had no say in.

How is that freedom?

so fucking weird.

:banghead:

mild :rant:

[Lars39]

1. You're just afraid of death or dying.

:sarcasm:
I understand where you're coming from...it's like a freakin' rollercoaster of uncertainty...a needless layer of stress, and all the more frustrating when you realize it is not like this in other advanced countries.

[Javaman]

2. I find it amusing that someone just

unrec'd my rant. LOL

I guess health insurance tentacles reach even here on DU.

[Gormy Cuss]

3. Probably because you're such an ingrate. You have group health insurance after all.

And yes, I'm being facetious.

[Javaman]

4. I know, what was I thinking? LOL

I should kiss the ground that our corporate masters tread. I mean, hell, I have health insurance! Even though my monthly premium is going up and my copay is going up and my deductible is going up!!!

Really, what was I thinking?

:sarcasm: LOL

Cheers! :)

[Lars39]

5. Pitiful, isn't it.

:hi:

[Javaman]

8. it really is.

I'm in that funk of knowing that I am being screwed over and there is nothing at all I can do about it except to continue to be an under paid worker bee grinding the wheat.

I think I pretty much made a clear point in the post about not having a say in our health care is basically no freedom, but oddly, someone, in some truly bizarre way of rationalization, thinks that's wrong.

I know, I'm the one that's crazy. LOL

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. Rec. nt

[mmonk]

17. "Uniquely American", isn't it?

[redqueen]

7. K&R

You're so right about parents not discussing these issues around kids.

[Laelth]

9. Beacuse, as the President said, ...

... "Insurance companies provide a legitimate service and employ many of our neighbors." He continued, "It would be too disruptive" to change this system dramatically.

That's what he said.

:dem:

-Laelth

[John Q. Citizen]

11. People used to say the same thing about slavery. It was a huge part of the economy.

[Mimosa]

15. ^ RIGHT!^

Obama sorely disappointed me.

[eridani]

13. Insurance companies kill for money. That isn't a service.

It outweighs any value added by claims processing.

[Laelth]

19. I agree. Please tell that to the President. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[John Q. Citizen]

10. Othink of how easily people were led away from the real solution, single payer, to the market based

solution, "the public option," and you will have the answer to your question.

Most people allow others to do their thinking for them. So when the nice paid organizer from HCAN or SEIU or DFA or OFA start telling people that "the public option" is the best thing since sliced bread, well people listen.

The health insurance companies backed the Obama plan from the start. They were invited to and attended all his meetings, they were invited to, testified at and attended all the Democratic run congressional hearings on health care.

The Democrats are receiving far more money from the health insurance industry than the Republicans are. At least 70/30 per capita and probably more than that.

And the public option is in the bills that take our tax monies and give them (a trillion a decade) to the private insurance companies and those bills also require citizens and employers to buy coverage from private insurance companies. Meanwhile Democrats shrunk the public option, Democrats shrunk who could even participate in the public option, and Democrats are going to pass this bill, all by themselves with no Republican help.

That's what happened to the public option. Democrats used it to kill off what people really wanted, single payer, then they shrunk the public option until it was useless and Democrats took the most money from the insurance companies.

That's what happened. Why do we let the Democrats do this to us? I don't know. Why do you let them do it to you?

[Javaman]

12. why did I let them do it to me? LOL

well, working for a huge company, things like this often drop from the sky.

Think safe falling on Yosemite Sam. The only say we ever get is AFTER the horse has been let out of the barn.

Corps love to use the old saying, "it's easier to get forgiveness than it is permission".

And as a worker bee, I still grind the wheat while the amount of wheat increases but the amount of help decreases.

[DFW]

14. My outfit had UHC for a while. They refused EVERYTHING. right out of a John Grisham novel

I needed an emergency heart procedure here in Germany, which I paid for up front. UHC examined it, determined that the
procedure would have cost three times as much in the USA, and then refused to reimburse me one cent, as it wasn't done
by one of their approved doctors. We ditched UHC, but the Blue Cross we now have is not really much better.

[annabanana]

16. Well . . at least no gubbmint bureaucrat is getting between you and your doctor.

This just shows how thoroughly the "Fox-full" are hypnotized.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

18. Don't get me started on UHC.

We also have UHC through my employer. I have heard the same thing as you from doctors: UHC doesn't pay their bills. Many doctors and hospitals are not in UHC's network for that very reason. We actually have to choose between going to the hospital 5 minutes from our house, which doesn't accept UHC, or driving 30 minutes to the next closest hospital, which does. If we have an emergency we actually have to weigh whether it's severe enough to risk thousands of dollars in medical bills from an out of network ER visit.

And people are afraid of single payer WHY, exactly?