The Scrabbled: Making Fun of Each Other since '99

There are far too many ways around the regulations for the insurance companies, and not nearly enough information about enforcement, etc. What type of system is going to be set up for appeals when they deny coverage? How is it going to run smoothly enough that insurance companies won’t just continue to do what they do, clog up the system, and just hope/assume that people will get tired of or won’t wait out the beaurocracy and they’ll win in the end.

I’m the opposite. The more I hear about it the worse I think it is. Both as policy and as politics.

Here’s my main issue: Insurance companies are essentially professional gamblers. They have hundreds of people whose sole job it is to run numbers and do cost/risk analysis. I’ve seen it first hand. They’ll deny something for 10 different people under the assumption and the historical knowledge that even if only 7 people have the time, knowledge, energy, whatever to fight it, they still make money off of the 3 people who don’t or can’t fight it. They have people whose job it is to figure out ways to run the clock out and just grind people down. And there’s nothing I’ve read about this bill to suggest there’s anything in it to prevent that kind of thing. Can’t deny people for pre-existing conditions? Let’s figure out what the most high cost conditions are, and have next to no specialists in that area within our network. The appeals process for people filing claims against them denying or dropping coverage illegally takes typically a year? O.K. how much interest do we make on keeping that money for an extra year rather than paying it out in claims? What are the odds that the patient will stil be alive during that time?

The whole thing is predicated on 1) Giving the private insurance companies no competition and 2) Given them just enough regulation to make it seem on paper like they are doing something, but also just enough time before it gets put into place for them to run their numbers and figure out the best ways around this thing.

And the tax on “cadillac plans” are basically going to hit a lot of the middle and upper class who have good insurance. As one of those people who uses his insurance a lot it’s going to cost me probably $5-10,000 more a year in assorted fees, out of pockets, etc. Which I would be fine with if that money were going to fund a public plan or expanded Medicare that would serve as competition to the private insurers and would cover everyone. But basically that money is going to go to pay for other people to get private insurance from these same companies, who are going to do the same shitty practices to them. I wish I could say it wasn’t but it really does look to me to be one big private industry ponzi scheme.

Sammy said:

ZeFrank

Completely.