I don’t care which side of the healthcare debate you are on, everyone has their anecdotal horror story dealing with their health insurance provider.  Anecdotes are great.  They are rooted in reality, so they are arguably based on fact.  However, they persuade primarily through emotion, so those who argue anecdotally don’t have to worry about penetrating those stupid layers of logic that get in the way.  I have my own anecdote:

On Oct. 16, 2004 I was in an accident with some friends where I rolled an SUV 5 times on the freeway while driving 70 mph.  I bruised my lung, so they took me to the emergency room in an ambulance, did MRIs, and basically took care of me.  I guess according to my insurance policies from my auto insurance co. and health insurance co. I was supposed to fill out some paperwork in the first 24 hours of being admitted (I was pretty doped up and pretty much in no condition to fill out paperwork) to determine which insurance company was going to pay for what.  Ultimately this resulted in some confusion that took over a year to clarify.  My health insurance co., United Health Care, was denying just about all of my claims.  I had to fight all of this.  I eventually had to do an appeal like Bobo mentioned.  I won the appeal, but they still kept billing me.  I did the whole runaround the United Health Care bureaucracy, which in my opinion was just as bad as dealing with a government bureaucracy.  Eventually after threatening legal action and working with the insurance company through the agent that sold the plan, I was able to get United Health Care to pay the claims as they should have as stipulated in my policy.

I learned a few things from this experience that largely inform my attitude towards healthcare:

1.  Health insurance companies are pretty screwed up.  It did seem that most of the call center employees that I worked with would be rewarded if my claim was never paid.

2.  After having to dig into the details of several bills, the costs of medical care are screwed up.  On the bill, why am I being charged $90 for rubber tubing that I could buy from Home depot for $.20 a foot?  Chuckles…Bobo…you know enough about this industry to explain this.  What is causing this artificial price inflation?  It seems like this kind of inflation only happens where deep government pockets are involved.

3.  I learned that these kinds of fights are most likely only won by getting lawyers involved -even though I didn’t get one.  In hindsight, I wish I would have.  I probably would have gotten a decent settlement even after the lawyers took their cut.  With so many deep pockets in the game, the health care industry seems to attract lawyers like flies on poop.  Lawyers seem to be the only group that isn’t being vilified by the left in the debate about health care.  They might not be part of the problem, but they are definitely a symptom of a major problem in the healthcare industry: excessive regulation that inevitably results from excessive litigation.

4.  I learned that I would never buy health insurance from United Health Care.  If my employer were to ever sign up with United, I would opt out and purchase private insurance.  Because I don’t think they are a business that takes care of their customers, I found an insurance company that I like a lot better: SelectHealth.  I have been very satisfied with them.  I went and entered into a legal contract with them called an insurance policy where I would agree to pay them certain amounts of money and they would agree to cover certain medical costs.  I don’t see why the government has to get in the middle of this other than provide the broad framework of laws upon which the legal contract is based.  I don’t see why the government needs to keep this company “honest” by competing against them.  I trust them.  I fully understand the contract that I entered with them, and it seems unconstitutional that the government should be trying to interfere.  I can see how United needs to be kept “honest,” but I think SelectHealth is doing a fine job of keeping them honest.  I honestly don’t care if SelectHealth makes obscene amounts of profits.  I actually hope they do, because I like them and I want them to stick around.  I entered into a legal contract with them with my eyes wide open, and if they profit from this, why is this wrong?