| |
|
I have had a very personal experience with this issue when I seriously injured my leg a month ago. My doctor believed I had broken my ankle, and ordered that I undergo an x-ray in order to confirm whether or not I had broken it. My health insurance company said it would not pay for the x-ray unless my doctor said that my ankle was broken. Of course, my doctor could not confirm that my ankle was broken unless I had an x-ray. My doctor, being a nice person, called up the health insurance himself and claimed that he was certain that my ankle was broken, which was completely untrue. They ended up paying for my x-ray and it turned out my ankle was not broken but severely sprained. Anyway, this experience made me start thinking more deeply about the health insurance industry.
In the end, the health insurance companies are about profits, they are accountable to their shareholders and not their patients. I feel like the only case in which they really truly care about their patients is to make sure they do not get sued for being negligent. I remember the story that John Edwards used to always tell about the girl whose life-saving transplant was denied by her health insurance company, and they finally approved her transplant the day she died. In that case she had health insurance but the health insurance picked profits over their patient, and she died for it. I really don't think that a health insurance company should be both in the business of keeping people healthy and making profits. |
|
|
