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How often do health insurers say no to patients? (2023)

(www.propublica.org)
94 points lentoutcry | 1 comments | 06 Sep 25 20:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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kstrauser ◴[06 Sep 25 22:24 UTC] No.45153451[source]▶
All the time. I have a UnitedHealthcare “platinum” plan, and it may as well not include pharmacy benefits because it never covers anything. Generic thyroid meds went from $2/month with Aetna to $70 with UHC. ADHD meds went from $10 to $300.

The threatened “death panels” we heard about when ACA was being debated are actually employees of insurers who decide what they’re not going to pay for.

I was raised a die-hard capitalist and in many ways still am. When it comes to healthcare these days, I’m somewhere to the left of Marx. What we have now is a failed system. It simply does not work. The turnip has been squeezed and there’s no blood left to wring from it.

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arwhatever ◴[06 Sep 25 23:01 UTC] No.45153712[source]▶
1. A properly competitive marketplace 2. Socialized medicine 3. What we have now

I would like to see #1 tried but at this point I’ll gladly accept #2

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mattnewton ◴[06 Sep 25 23:22 UTC] No.45153814[source]▶
I just don't think #1 is possible, how can you have a functioning marketplace for a good when the demand is hard to forecast for an individual, almost completely inelastic and often extremely time sensitive. I'd say the US really tried and the incentives just aren't there for a stable system.
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1. jaredklewis ◴[07 Sep 25 04:30 UTC] No.45155404[source]▶
I don’t think we tried.

For a market to work, the buyers have to be exercising their discretion. But most health insurance in the US is provided through employers (whose interests are different from those of the employees). There are a thousand other ways that the US healthcare markets are not free or poorly designed, but this is the original sin that (I would argue) causes most of the issues: the insured don’t choose their insurer, so the insurers are not competing for members, they’re competing for employers.

See Singapore for a place that actually tried. They have a public healthcare but also a well functioning private healthcare market.