Friday, June 26, 2009

What a surprise! (Not.)

Even though I already knew this, it disgusts me:

Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid, according to a report released [Wednesday] by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.
...
At a committee hearing yesterday, three health-care specialists testified that insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell "junk" policies that do not cover needed care. Rockefeller said he was exploring "why consumers get such a raw deal from their insurance companies."

The star witness at the hearing was a former public relations executive for major health insurers whose testimony boiled down to this: Don't trust the insurers.

"The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable -- publicly accountable -- health-care option," said Wendell Potter, who until early last year was vice president for corporate communications at the big insurer Cigna.

Yes, I've had claims denied that most definitely were supposed to be covered under the plan I was on. I'll bet that's happened to a lot of you who are reading this.
~~~

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous10:26 PM

    What is just as scary and maybe even more scary is that health insurance companies can preapprove a surgery or procedure and then change their minds after the fact. I did not believe this when I first heard it, but I have done some checking since then and it appears to be true.
    Carolyn L.

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