Via the Denver Post, a story that will surely warm the hearts of insurance executives and stockholders everywhere!
La Rosa Carrington has more than enough to worry about. She's a single mother with two teenage daughters, she's fighting a type of leukemia that requires five days of chemo a month for four months, and she lost her job in May.
So the last thing she needed was news that her health insurance benefits would be terminated because she hadn't paid her premium in full. The shortfall? One penny.
"My medical bills are coming in like locusts, and you're holding up my benefits because of one red cent?" an incredulous Carrington said from her hospital bed last week as she recalled her conversation with a customer service rep at Discovery Benefits, an employee benefits administrator based in North Dakota.
Carrington said she talked twice to a customer service representative, who told her it was policy that the penny be received before the benefits could be reinstated. Write a check or send a money order, Carrington said the representative told her.
Carrington then asked to speak to a supervisor, who reiterated the company's policy and wouldn't budge on the penny. Carrington also threatened to take her case to the media, and that's why she thinks the supervisor called her back with some good news: The supervisor had pulled out her own calculator, done the math — and determined that Carrington was correct.
Does this surprise anyone ?
It does surprise me a little bit.
What's sad is that its only a little bit.
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
The state insurance board should cancel that crooked agencies right to operate in their environs (with automatic transfers of existing accounts to comparative ones).
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
This is how insurance companies do business. This is not unusual. If state insurance boards or whatever toothless regulatory agencies you have in the US put companies out of business for practices like this, you'd be forced to have public insurance because all the current ones would be gone.
fixed.
or was told it was fixed.
or something.
i still don't have health insurance.
I don't know exactly how to respond to this story.
The insurance companies, with the approval of Congress, will gladly take your money and then refuse to pay when a claim is submitted.
The problem is not just with the insurance companies, but with the congress that stands behind them, takes their campaign money and ultimately enacts laws that benefit the insurance companies.
Surprise?
What is it going to take to gain controlo of this corrupt government and bring it back to the people that elect their "representatives?"
No matter wehat direction you take in legislation you will find that the elected representatives will side with the corporate entity on any issue.
Our government is corrupt from the president on down to city councilperson.
What type of revolution will it take to overturn this catastrophic tide of corporate rule over this country?
I am totally ashamed to be an American at this time considering the "wars" that are being waged supposedly in my name and the corporate prostitution of our government.
I am just absolutely stunned by the actions of every one of our supposedly elected officials. Take, for example, the BP catastrophy that is taking place in the Gulf. Everybody from the president on down is bending down and sucking the dick of BP. Does that tell you anything?
Let's bring back the Guillotine mount it on the steps of washington and start lopping off heads VIV LA FRANCE
Since it was less than half a cent, she rounded down, very reasonably. The insurance company rounded up and found their excuse. The Health Insurance Company and Pharmaceutical Welfare and Give away Act of 2010 is a joke. On us!
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
That's all there is to it.
I am so proud of our capitalist system of healthcare, it just exudes concern for each and every one of us.
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
In the world of business insurance (WC, general liability, etc).
Business owners (especially small business owners) routinely cancel for no-pay. then complain about how tough it is to run a business, carrier (fearful of being seen as anti-business) reinstates the policy for a nominal fee.
happens daily.
especially around holidays and tax time.
this story burns. rules are for the little people.
and the dems cant mount a serious effort to thwart this.....
“‘I’m in the hospital receiving chemotherapy; I can’t get you a money order,’” Carrington said she told the rep. “If this is how you treat people, you need spiritual training.”
These smug and arrogant moneygrubbers need a lot more than spiritual training, that's for sure.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
Oh, sue the crap out of them.
And then sue them again just for fun.
there is a perfectly good wrought iron fence going to waste outside the White House.
Be as you wish to seem
Just knowing there are countries where people don't have to put up with this shit makes me want to scream. Increasingly frequently.
Thank you Obama and the weak ass democrats and the rotten fucking republicans insurance companies are allow to continue to treat people like this.
GOP and the DNC working together to turn America into a world wide joke!
"Promote the general welfare" is a wonderful phrase.
What do you think it means?
It means help the rich.
Link
This story is utterly believable, however. My COBRA coverage was cut off because ADP alleged my payment was one day late. It was not, and I supplied cancelled checks to prove it. They shredded the checks and denied my claim. Coincidentally, it all happened the day after my middle son was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and then a diabetic reaction to prednisone. I was unemployed and had to cough up $6,000 from my retirement plan to pay the bills.
What they don't tell you? Third-party administrators like this one aren't subject to ERISA oversight, so the usual COBRA claims procedures don't apply. They deny; you're done. Also, they're generally out of state, so state insurance commissioners can't regulate them either.
It's a racket.
Hmm, let's see, what are the alternatives here?
The company was willing to discontinue coverage for a cancer patient in the middle of aggressive (and probably expensive) chemotherapy over a penny. And sent a letter to that patient to inform her that her that she would not be covered.
Or, the company never intended to stop coverage, and just thought it would be a good thing to torment a cancer patient in the middle of aggressive therapy with a threat to stop coverage - and payment for the bills, and thus probably the therapy.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think either one makes the company look so good.
...a US citizen.
You poor schmucks.
Freedom to defraud those with little means and no power.
got us into a recession, owing billions to China.
Let's follow the republican way;
Let's cut off their right to run for high office!
Aside from the opening sentence it was Susie Madrak's lone contribution to this story.
As bad as facts behind this story are, and the fault's it reveals with our system, many of the comments express anger at a variety of misdirected targets. Why?
Because once again, Susie got what little she contributed to this story wrong. Discovery Benefits, the company which is in the wrong, is not the insurance company as stated in the headline. They are a third party administrator hired by the consumer's former employer.
The fact that there is a market for third party administrator services
in the employer/employee health care field, and the lack of regulation of these services that karoli noted in her comment is a testament to the waste involved in anything other than a non-profit single payer system.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
It was incredibly stupid for Carrington to have to go through the hassle for a measly penny. Insurance companies are bloodsuckers. But as you noted in this case the issue wasn't and issue with the insurance company, and further, she was never "Cancelled". There was a temporary delay in reimbursement. It's a shame to waste time and energy on this story, not to mention headlines, when there are so many actual abuses going on. It dilutes the argument and makes us look like a bunch of shrill whiners.
Regardless of whether it was the insurance company or the third party administrator, the same issue remains - we have a health insurance system that finds it perfectly reasonable to threaten to cut off benefits over a penny.
And 'temporary delay in reimbursement' may sound better than 'cut off benefits,' but the result is the same.
is one of those small facts that often obscure the larger points in modern discourse. Those repeating their neighbor's rendition of the town crier's commentary were what made the old days more civil. No need for a media watchdogs like Crooks and Liars then.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
First of all, the original headline said the insurance was cancelled. This is entirely different than temporarily suspending reimbursement in the sense that if she had been cancelled, she'd have a hell of a time getting her coverage reinstated.
Look, I'm all for holding the insurance company's feet to the fire, and I wish we had single payer, but I stand by my point that the reporting on the progressive side HAS to be truthful and accurate.
Management is scum and all the employes have to behave the same for fear of losing their jobs. It's the wonderful Rethuglican praised and supported health insurance system.
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