PRI: Public Radio International: National and World News, Talk, Arts, Entertainment and Music

Ira Glass looks at the fine print in health insurance

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:31:00 -0500

Ira Glass reports on what he found at a recent House subcommittee hearing on the health insurance industry.

Tommy Weir

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:47:44 -0500

Thank you for this.

The failure of the US health care system only came home to me fully this summer when we came to help look after my mother in law.

Suffering from advanced Parkinson's and responding poorly to all the Parkinson's medication, she's in a tough spot. She lives with my Father in law who's a retired teacher from a state College. He's paid insurance his whole working life.

Now at the end of their lives, they face a bewildering array of agencies and relevant sources of care, from their insurance company, Medicare, Medicaid, Hospice care, their own funds to private nurses. There's consultants operating independently and consultants associated with each agency. It's baffling, endlessly complex, and each of course says that someone other body should be dealing with covering the costs of her needed care.

Nothing will cover the 24 hour, 7 days a week care she actually needs.

They have adult children who are far away but able to help, I can't imagine what it would be like if they were on their own or worse, on their own with no partner.

jairy hunter

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:09:54 -0500

Uh....Medicare is famous for denying claims for the same types of reasons, which is why physicians sometimes have to fight for 6-12 months to get paid what paltry sums are released. They're all looking for an excuse not to pay.

D. M.

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:50:35 -0500

Uh... Jairy... I get that you're trying to say that the government is as bad as industry, but here's the difference: without government interference, the insurance industry will NEVER change that policy. On the other hand, here's government trying to do something about it. Your comment smells of industry apologetics.

Laraine

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:38:07 -0500

It's sad that real news like this (about the health care crisis) does not get the same media coverage as does Sarah Palin's 'Death Camp' comments.

Pugo

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:59:19 -0500

Several years ago when we lost our group health insurance and had to buy a private policy, Blue Cross Blue Shield kept going over our doctor's records looking for reasons to exclude various maladies from coverage. When they couldn't find anything, they asked for more records. It took three months and we wound up with a $10,000 deductible portability policy for him so that they would pay in case of any problems. I bought a $5000 deductible policy for myself. The premiums were about $10,000 per year by the time we dropped it a year and a half ago. I got so mad during what was probably the fifth call of nitpicking that I told the woman that I knew that they were fishing. She was actually insulted, when it was so obvious that that was exactly what they were doing.

Relatedly, about 12 years ago when we bought a long-term term life insurance policy, because the doctor had indicated that he had written a prescription for an anti-depressant, we were informed that we didn't qualify for the preferred premium that we otherwise qualified for.

Susan Thuener

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:30:12 -0500

I read this morning that Obama is giving up on the public option. It is obvious that the Pharm, Ins. has done it again. Clinton tried, Johnson tried, now Obama. This country will probably sink even lower on the global health census now. We are 37th now, care to guess how much worse it will get.

Art S.

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:21:22 -0500

Insurance companies should be prohibited from dropping people who did not have any sickness when they enrolled. That said, insurance comppanies should not have to cover people who enrolled knowing they were sick. If that happened, we all would not have insurance and then when we did get sick, enroll. It doesn't take a high IQ to know that that would either raise premiums sky high or bankrupt the company. We would all suffer for that. But as I said before, once you're enrolled, you should not be denied medical treatment or be dropped.

Laurie Phillips

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:56:03 -0500

My hesitation in letting the government take over insurance is my experience. My husband has been upder pain managment for about 7-8 years. He worked from age 14 - age 59. He could no longer work due to the pain and the medications he had to take. He applied for disability. Our idea was that he was just applying for his Social Security 2 years early.

Instead of sending him to a doctor for a doctor's opinion first, they sent him a 33 page document on to fill out. Basically they wanted to know everything he did daily in 15 minute increments. Some very personal questions that should have been asked by a doctor.

After reading up on disability, it is an accepted practice that the social security agency turns down the first disability claim. It is said over and over again that if you want to get the claim to go through, you will need to hire an attorney. I know people who had leukemia and Lou's Gehrig's disase to died long before the fist social security check came in.

There are military people coming back to this country injured who need medical assistance and the government is lagging behind with their injury care.

Do any of you really think that the government would do any better with the general public when they cannot even care for our injured solders?

Juanda Benson

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:59:17 -0500

It is too bad that the tradition of winning at any cost is so very ingrained in American character. Government agencies and charities get so fed up with people trying to game the system, get something for nothing, win the game, that they treat all clients as if they are out to cheat the system. Doctors cheat, non-patients do it, care-givers do it, next-of-kin do it, lazy lie-abouts do it. If you work with the public for very long you can get very cynical. The public sees free as free to any one at any time.

Pain doctors now drug test their patients. No painkiller in the system, no pain prescription. Clients have been doctor-shopping and selling the pills on the black market.

Advertising, commerce and public entertainment encourage and enshrine this sort of behavior. The good old American outlaw.

I commend any and every public servant trying to meet a public need.