Health insurance

My latest issue is my health insurance. First, they keep screwing up the same thing, over and over. And every time they screw it up, I call them, get transferred innumerable times, and then finally someone says it is fixed – and I believe them. It is fixed, for maybe a month, and then they decide that I owe them over $6,000 again, they don’t let me know anything, and when I go on-line to check another prescription, it pops up that they think I owe them this much again. You think I would learn, but I am such a fool that I actually trust that people have done what they say they did. I keep pretty good notes while it is going on, but then those notes get thrown in the recycling because, hey, they said it was fixed.

So I start over again. This morning I was on the phone over 1/2 hour, being transferred from person to person. I think I talked to actual people for maybe 5 minutes total in that time. The last person put me on hold for about 20 minutes, then came back and said they fixed it, and I don’t owe anything. Which is good, but I don’t know how long it will last! This time I started a new file for my notes and will keep them. I also was smart enough to ask for something written that says it is fixed. If it does, indeed, come, I will put it in my file, and the next time that it happens (because I am pretty sure that it will happen again), I am going to skip that long hold times and just send them a copy of the letter they sent, and tell them to fix it – again.

And I really need to get over this feeling I have that things should be fair. There are some things that seem to be so obviously wrong to me, and it’s important for me to understand “it is what it is” and to move on. Again, it’s my health insurance. In their infinite wisdom (or more likely, their infinite desire for more and more and more money), they have decided that only money that is actually paid by me (as opposed to the co-pay plan I am on for an expensive drug I take) will apply to my deductible and out-of-pocket amount. This seems patently unfair to me. The insurance company gets their money, regardless of who pays it – they just get more money by not counting that money toward my deductible or out-of-pocket amount. The perceived unfairness of this drives me nuts, but like I said, it is what it is, and I probably can’t change it. Though I am checking with the insurance commissioner’s office to see if it’s legal. But seeing how it’s the rich corporations that get to make most of the rules, it probably is.

Get rid of the greedy health insurance companies, and let’s go with the single payer, everyone gets health care, plan. Healthcare should not be a for-profit commodity!