Health Care Debate.

For anyone who thinks that their health care organization or health insurance company has any interest in them, their health, welfare, survival, medical care or anything other than their premiums, read Nicholas Kristof's column in the NYT on 8/27/09.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/opinion/27kristof.html?_r=1

Our experience, when still in medical practice, was like this: small claims were paid quickly, but they did anything possible to avoid paying large claims. Typically, when we submitted a claim for a lengthy hospitalization with a lot of dialysis treatments, there would be no response. After a month or so, we would call. They would say,"We never got that claim." This happened repeatedly. We would resend the claim-we anticipated and always had copies. They delayed again and when called said they needed to see the hospital record. I would get the record copied by the hospital, circle our notes and signatures, re-copy it and send it in. They would, of course, never get it until we sent a second copy. If we persisted and insisted, we would ultimately get paid, but 6 or 8 months later.

The concept here is to keep discouraging claims. Some people will forget or get distracted and not complete the process. Even if they do ultimately pay, they have been collecting interest on your money the whole time. Medicare, by contrast, always paid within a few weeks.

Understand insurance companies-they want your money and only want to keep it for themselves. Why do people want to keep this system going?