Insurance Companies Make Us Angry

Pick any post on this blog, and you’ll notice something right away from the comments.  Those who come here to deride the evils of “socialized medicine” or the completely fictional “lazy uninsured” have a tone, not an emotion.  There’s some smugness, or some superiority compared to the health care systems that deliver comparable quality at a fraction of the cost, but not raw emotion.  But those who come here to deride the businesses practices of the insurance company have an emotion – anger.  It's not just on the blog, either -- I've lost track of the number of times I've seen someone who's seen a loved one suffer more from fighting over claims denials than from their illness become tongue-tied with rage.  This isn't just an argument for justice or a better system.  To put it bluntly, the business practices of private insurance make us pissed.

Today was a day to be pissed at the insurance companies.  AIG-bonus-levels of pissed.

I started today reading this an article entitled “Insurers Shun Those Taking Certain Meds” in the Miami Examiner.  We know that the insurance companies deny policies to those on the individual market and some with employer-based coverage who have what are termed “pre-existing conditions.”  The Examiner pulls the curtain back and finds the confidential memos outlining who, in the industry’s bottom-line-driven rationale, should receive coverage and who shouldn’t.  The usual suspects – gallstones, diabetes, sever acne, and cancer, even in remission, MS, AIDS/HIV – will yield a very likely rejection.

And actually, that’s only the start of the article.

What people don’t realize is the open book that is prescription drug usage.  The article details how medical underwriters use data-mining firms to determine who’s on what medication and, based on that, reject the applicant for either hiding a condition (with the proof being the medicine s/he is taking for that condition) or not even bothering to hide it.  I guess now you don’t even need to mention that you’re taking an anti-coagulant.  They can find that out themselves… and use it to deny you health care.

I ended the day with watching PBS’ Sick Around America, a new hour-long special from Frontline (and you have to love how PBS not only immediately puts the whole special online, but supplemental interviews as well.)  One of the featured stories is Jennifer Thompson, who was accepted as a customer by Blue Cross, only to have them rescind her coverage when she got sick, leaving her struggling to pay $160,000 in medical bills.  Her only appeal is through a lawsuit.

It’s impossible to hear stories like these and not want to smash something.  With that in mind, it’s mind-boggling how many “insurance companies are at the negotiating table” make it into the media.  I wonder if health insurance companies don’t just look good by contrast to the AIGs and banks of the nation.  At least AHIP is at the table, right?  Except they’re at the table only offering to give up the most morally inexcusable business practices at play in our country – denying care to those who most need it; charging different rates for the sick and the healthy in the hopes that they won’t have to pay for the sick;  using cancer survivors’ own resilience as a reason to deny them policies.  And offering to give up the morally inexcusable reminds us of how widespread those practices are in the first place.

The season of change we’re now in owes as much to anger at the insurance companies as economic factors.  And when you’re dealing with the political will of the American people, Dr. Bruce Banner’s motto goes for all of us:  “Don’t make me angry.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

(Photo credit:  GreenBeanPrime on Flickr.)