“The current system is so profit-driven that there are entire business units dedicated to finding ways to deny you coverage for services. That means that there is a person working at your health care company whose sole job is to find a way to deny your claim. And if he does deny your claim, you have little to no recourse.”
Nonsense. When insurers deny claims, there is always an internal appeal procedure. My experience with my own insurers (actually, former insurers — it’s been a while since any insurer has denied any claim for anybody in my family) has been that merely threatening to use that procedure has always — so far — suddenly gotten my claim approved. If it doesn’t work, the insured employer will often lean on the insurer to facilitate approval of a claim, with the implied threat of going elsewhere for next year’s policy. Failing that, the court system is the obvious recourse, and many, many people have used litigation and publicity in the media to good effect in getting insurers to budge. Should they have to do this? No, of course not. But do you really think the government is going to approve every treatment that your doctor might think you need, once we have a public option? And when it doesn’t, just how far do you think we’re going to get with internal appeals, litigation, or media pressure against some faceless government bureaucrat who’s paid to deny claims? Ever heard of sovereign immunity? Ever tried to deal with Medicare on a payment disagreement? I have, and it’s like trying to communicate with an octopus with no head. In point of fact, we have MORE leverage against a private company trying to deny a claim, little though it might be, than we would have against a public one. In suggesting that rationing under a government plan would somehow be better, or no worse, than what we have now, you are unintentionally making exactly the opposite point of the one you think you’re making.
