Reply #68: Your insurance company already will tell you what to eat and which pills they won't dispense.... [View All]

[Hekate]

Your insurance company is only too happy to exclude you from coverage for any of a thousand reasons. THEY are what's between you and your doctor, and THEY run the de facto "death panels" by denial of paid-for coverage.

Have you ever had to make a large claim against your health insurer? Anyone in your family get cancer and hit the "lifetime cap" for coverage? Ever had a kid in an accident that made him need facial reconstructive surgery and have Blue Cross try to pay the doc like it was just a boob job? And have a clerk in some city 500 miles away tell you they were going to deny claims, make you jump through hoops some more?

I could go on, but I assume you have never had to deal with what so many of the rest of us have had to. Perhaps you are young and have never been seriously injured or ill.

Perhaps you don't understand that the VA and Medicare are actually run by the government, that Medicare has administrative costs of under 2%. Private plans under Medicare Advantage have an 16.7% admin costs.

Private insurance companies like Blue Cross spend nearly 1/3 of their money (which is your money) on administrative, non-medical costs, and God knows how much more for advertising, corporate jets, CEO bonuses, and the like.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/administrative-costs/
http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/700

Or maybe you are just a troll.

Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

Hekate