Business
Why Health Care in America Sucks
I’ve heard politicians debate about the topic, and even my dad has thrown in a few spiteful comments regarding the topic, but now that I am employed full-time and am participating in my employer’s health plan, I know first hand why the health care system in America sucks….
Shoddy administration.
That’s right, I said it. The health care system in America sucks because of shoddy administration. If any one of America’s public companies were run with the same inefficiencies and ridiculous bureaucracy, the shareholders would bail and the company would be failing for bankruptcy.
When I first began working full time and signed up for one of the several health care options, including a health savings account, I decided to go with Kaiser. I chose Kaiser based on a large number of different factors, but the bottom line is that it was the best fit for my family’s medical needs, and offered the best price.
I haven’t gotten sick since my coverage started, but my kids have - multiple times - requiring a number of different trips to the doctor and a trip to the emergency room for a broken arm. But our health care bureaucratic nightmare began when my wife took the kids to their first Dr. appointment and was told that we were not “in the system.” This was about a month after signing up with the program, so I wasn’t too surprised that it had taken about 6 weeks to process, but my wife had to travel to another building to fill out a mountain of paperwork just to get a temporary card.
Then, at a follow-up visit just a short time later, she was forced to fill out the same paperwork again for another temporary card.
Then, a few weeks later when one of our daughters broke her arm, we were forced to fill out even more paperwork in order to see the Dr. - again, because we weren’t in the system yet. My wife was already upset form the broken arm, but became even more upset when she missed her appointment because filling out paperwork had taken the entire appointment time slot! Luckily, the Dr. recognized how upset she was and took some extra time to see my daughter in between other patients.
A few weeks later, the icing on the cake came… in the mail. After countless phone calls to the HMO trying to get added to the mysterious “system” I finally received a welcome package from Kaiser complete with insurance cards for everyone. However, only three days later I received another welcome package along with 4 new insurance cards - with different numbers. Then a week later I received another welcome pack with insurance cards, and then another!
As of today, I have received 4 different welcome packs with insurance cards along with 2 letters telling me to throw away the previous cards. I have received so much crap from Kaiser in the mail, I don’t know if I’m even covered anymore. With my luck, I’ve been completely deleted from the system and I’m going to have to start this whole hellish nightmare again. I just hope nothing serious happens to me in the meantime…
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11 comments for “Why Health Care in America Sucks”
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Are you talking about Medicare? Otherwise your health insurance *IS* a public company.
I agree all of them are run horribly. I have quite a few stories myself to the beuracratic nightmare that is health insurance. There’s plenty of blame to lay around, but I think you’re correct in that the hardest part DEALING with it, is how horribly they’re all run.
Unfortunately there is no alternative. You get to pick from one of dozens of horrible companies, most of which bordering on criminal, or do without healthcare alltogether.
The last time I checked administration costs constituted 36% of the total health care budget anually. We are being administered to death. adminisering health care is a too familiar lucerative goverment contract. In a flat world industries have to radicaly change their bussiness structure or parish, just ask IBM, or GM. So why does the health care industry continue to operate under these atiquated bussiness models? Lucerative government contracts and tax exempt charters.
I completely agree with your statements, and feel trapped among all of these incompetent health care providers. I have been trying to finalize an HSA with Humana since October and to this day it is not finished.
I wish there was something we could do to take actions against companies like this . . .
Not trying to burst your bubble…but most businesses work like that. You ended up at the nasty end of the 80/20 rule. Any programmer worth his salt will attest to the fact that despite our apparent progress we’re still in the dark ages of effective program planning and management.
We’re still working to tackle the big stuff. Short of the isolated success stories you keep near and dear, most of the world is a hairy mess.
Short Term Medical covers a person for a limited period. You can get coverage for as few as 30 days or as many as 185 days. If you think you’ll need more permanent health coverage, you may want to look at another health insurance option, such as an Individual Medical policy.
http:// http://www.easystm.com
Talk about sucks. Im a single ,independent, 23 year old girl who happens to be struggling to pay bills and in debt (partly because past medical bills). My insurance company that I have had for the last 6months has denied everything. And I just came back from the pharmacy with my generic antibiotics for my tonsilities. The cost was$66.00. The orginal price before the discount? $68.00!!!!! No joke. The pharmicist was even laughing.
Easystm.com will give Coverage of short term health insurance as early as the next day… just a few simple medical questions to answer. Best of all, you can choose to receive your policy electronically!
http://www.easystm.com
Your first problem was signing up with Kaiser. My dad has Kaiser and his primary would not approve a visit to an oncologist even though his symptoms were screaming he had cancer We wouldn’t let him wait for Kaiser to get off its’ ass and we pooled our money together to pay for the specialist. Even after the records from the oncologist were sent to the primary, he refused to approve a specialist. We continued to pay the specialist out of pocket and for the treatments too. Finally, 8 months later Kaiser approved to start treatment but would not pay us the $50,000 we spent out of pocket. We were told my Dad would who is 80 years old would have been dead by the time Kaiser approved the treatment and that’s what they were counting on. They have a corporate policy to delay and not treat older patients until it is too late. Then they can say we tried but they were too far gone.
We really have to look at the 2008 candidates and figure out which one is going to really fix this mess. I don’t care which party they were from, if one of them gave me a feeling that they had a real solution or even a process to come up with a solution in a reasonable time, I would vote for him or her. I wonder how many other people feel the same way?
We’ve had group health insurance for the last 20+ years. In the last 4 years we’ve had to actually use it and it has been pure misery. Sure, everything is covered when you buy the policy but things change when you start using it. In-network / Out-of-Network, sheesh, seems like you don’t stand a chance. If something is out-of-network then standard/customary doesn’t apply so everyone can try and get you for everything they can. WHAT A MESS!
I pay nearly $6,000, and growing, in premiums every year. We’ve had 2 out-patient surgeries in our family in the last two years, and have maxed out the rest of our insurance requirements but still paid more than $5,000 out of pocket. The basic math says we paid more than $11,000 each year for health coverage protection. Initially, you would think the insurance company took a hit on us because of our expenses but since they only pay the medical community a reduced amount called “Usual and Customary”, I am sure they still made a considerable profit at everyone else’s expense.
So, why do I have insurance?
Complaining hasn’t done me or anyone else I know any good in this arena so I’m proposing a new PUBLIC outcry. Please visit my website http://www.stoprapingme.org and get involved. There are images to send to people that they might send to others, and they . . . Hopefully we can mobilize a public outcry, determine some stop-gap solutions that will start a reform action.
How do you eat an elephant?
Yes, Health Insurance and the Medical profession both suck…
My former company started this mess for me, they got caught up in this whole “deductible/out of pocket is less expensive scheme”. We switched in April. Come Nov/Dec my family developed medical problems. I was trying to keep up as we went, paying “my share”. Come to find out the people I pay don’t tell the insurance companies what I’ve paid and the Insurance companies don’t ask and could care less. Which is why I know I’ve paid more than my so called fair share, which is another point entirely. Now back to what I was complaining about, most of the bills started hitting in january. Which by the way comes after December, which is coincidentally the last month of the year for the deductible and we got to start all over. So, Come January/Feburary here I am meeting a whole new “deductible”. This sucks! To top it of, my company goes under in March. Hello, now I’m paying $1000/month for cobra. Unfortunately, I cannot get my own Health Insurance because I have Diabetes. Terrific, I’m in great shape aren’t I. But, thankfully I get a new job. Crap… A new Deductible. Except this one is bigger than the last one. Plus it costs me more per month. Now I’m drowning in medical bills. Just shoot me now. $9000 out of my own pocket, not including what I paid in premiums… For ACL surgery alone (This does not include the former two deductibles). I realize, I can’t go to the Auto shop to have this done. But, it’s not freakin brain surgery. $56,000 was the original bill from the hospital alone… for Eight hours of work. Eight hours? That’s like $7000/hour… Isn’t that what Michael Jordan made? Granted… I’ve met my deductible and out of pocket and I don’t have to pay anything else for the rest of the year (what like a whole month?). If this is what I have to look forward to every year for the rest of my life… just shoot me now, someone else can collect whatever is left of me.
Yes, Health Insurance and the Medical profession both suck…
My former company started this mess for me, they got caught up in this whole “deductible/out of pocket is less expensive scheme”. We switched in April. Come Nov/Dec my family developed medical problems. I was trying to keep up as we went, paying “my share”. Come to find out the people I pay don’t tell the insurance companies what I’ve paid and the Insurance companies don’t ask and could care less. Which is why I know I’ve paid more than my so called fair share, which is another point entirely. Now back to what I was complaining about, most of the bills started hitting in january. Which by the way comes after December, which is coincidentally the last month of the year for the deductible and we got to start all over. So, Come January/Feburary here I am meeting a whole new “deductible”. This sucks! To top it of, my company goes under in March. Hello, now I’m paying $1000/month for cobra. Unfortunately, I cannot get my own Health Insurance because I have Diabetes. Terrific, I’m in great shape aren’t I. But, thankfully I get a new job. Crap… A new Deductible. Except this one is bigger than the last one. Plus it costs me more per month. Now I’m drowning in medical bills. Just shoot me now. $9000 out of my own pocket, not including what I paid in premiums… For ACL surgery alone (This does not include the former two deductibles). I realize, I can’t go to the Auto shop to have this done. But, it’s not freakin brain surgery. $56,000 was the original bill from the hospital alone… for Eight hours of work. Eight hours? That’s like $7000/hour… Isn’t that what Michael Jordan made? Granted… I’ve met my deductible and out of pocket and I don’t have to pay anything else for the rest of the year (what like a whole month?). If this is what I have to look forward to every year for the rest of my life… just shoot me now, someone else can collect whatever is left of me.