How evil is your insurance company?
Anyone watch last night’s episode of House MD ? Great show. (House: Episode 6.14 – “5 to 9″. You can watch it on www.fox.com in a week in case you missed it) The premise of the episode is to show us how big and evil the insurance companies are. Mid Atlantic Health is portrayed as this big monster of a company that is only concerned with its bottom line profit, not the health of its patients. As much as I found myself cheering through the episode, I had to ask the question, “Don’t we already know this”?
LA Times today: Obama official ‘very disturbed’ by Anthem Blue Cross rate hikes
Healthcare is big business. Big big business. (In its current form, it is bankrupting our country.) Health care costs are spiraling out of control. Are we really surprised? An insurance company is only able to provide services if it makes money. If health care was like any other business, people would change companies when they raised premiums. However, subscribers can’t do that because of the issue of pre-existing conditions.
Health care is changing. Our office does not accept any insurance plans. 90% of our patients do not have any health insurance that covers services in our office. (The other 10% pay cash and then send in receipts to the insurance company for reimbursement). For that 90% group of people it would cost them FAR more in premiums per month to bump up to a “better” plan with applicable coverage. Instead, we offer interest free monthly payments that are under $200. Most people spend more than that per month in other avenues that aren’t improving their lives.
We can be angry at the insurance companies, sure. We can say that they are motivated by profit… because they are. No amount of government regulation is going to change that. The alternative? Many people drop their coverage down to “catastrophe” only. They have a huge deductible and pay cash for their health care choices. But, it is their choice. Money is then spent on things that are going to add value to their lives.
As a bonus their liver and kidneys are thankful. They may even save an extra thousand dollars here and there.
