health insurance
Do you feel discriminated against by your insurance company? I recently changed my health insurance carrier due to my employer. The last one would not authorize a cmg. This one approved it and I literally jumped for joy only to find out that my deductible is 10 x when compared to other people, so I have to pay full price for my Dexcom ($1100.00) and each month of sensors ($350.00) will cost full price until my $6000.00 deductible is fulfilled. This, I feel is so unfair. I can't afford to hand over $1500 upfront for a month of cgm. I am feeling very discriminated against. They can't deny me insurance by law, but they can pay less of my costs by increasing my deductibles because I have a preexisting condition my medical needs/costs cost more than the ordinary individual. We all pay the same premiums (my coworkers and I), yet their deductibles are less and they don't need durable medical equipment to live and prevent even more complicated and more expensive treatments down the road. What do you think?
Tags: cmg, dexcom, discrimination, health, insurance
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lisa on -
Amen, and well put. I totally agree. For them to have to lower their standards of living is beyond their scope. It seems those of us who never had money are the ones that can more easily part with it. I love dogs and donate my time and money regularly. On the other hand, my 24-year-old son was just diagnosed with testicular cancer and the insurance company won't approve a PET scan for him. I have to come up with $3800.00 for it, which I will, if I have to sell my furniture and TV. To be a real bah humbug about it, I have a brother and sister who are doctors, leaders in their field, and are multimillionaires. I asked for help from them and no reply. That's off subject, I know, but it's going to mean I won't be able to afford to buy sensors for a long time for my Dexcom (I pay for the sensors out of pocket). I can't get help from the rich on either end--the insurance company or doctors.
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Permalink Reply by ultravires on -
A bit late to the party, but no, not really. I do wish insurance companies were better at assessing and pricing risk, but I accept that diabetics have worse-than-expected health outcomes across the board, require constant medical treatment for the rest of their lives, and all of that obviously translates into more costs and more risk for insurers. I don't begrudge insurance companies for trying to make a profit. They provide a service: they put a price on risk, and over a large sample they do so with remarkable accuracy. I really do not think that anyone wants to live in a world without insurance.
Obviously it's not fair that some people have diabetes (or cancer, or kidney disease, or asthma, or any other medical condition) but it's not the role of insurance companies to mitigate that unfairness. What people see as "greedy" or "money-grubbing" behavior is ultimately a rational response to distorted market incentives and coarse-grained mechanisms for assessing risk. Those of you who are blaming insurers should be blaming the government, because insurance regulators and politicians are the ones who really should be addressing the systemic failures in the insurance markets, not insurers themselves. Trying to turn a debate about market failures in a highly regulated industry into unfounded accusations of class warfare (which, frankly, is what a lot of this thread has turned into) is not productive and I think we can all try to think a little bit more critically about this problem. I think that we can agree that there should be stronger across-the-board measures preventing insurers from denying coverage to patients with pre-existing conditions and requiring that all members covered under the same group policy pay the same premiums and deductibles without blaming insurance companies for working to make a profit under the existing legal framework.
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