Jacology: Health Insurance In America | kplr11.com ? St. Louis ...

Posted on: 4:00 pm, April 3, 2012, by Charles Jaco, updated on: 02:58pm, April 3, 2012

(KPLR) -The health insurance system in this country is insane. I say this because I?ve spent the last two weeks helping out a good friend who just suffered a stroke. He?s a small businessman who has a pre-existing heart condition. Because of that, he wouldn?t have been able to get health insurance at all if it wasn?t for Obamacare.

But because Obamacare makes it illegal to deny a policy because of a pre-existing condition, he was able to purchase a five million dollar policy, with a ten thousand dollar deductible. Which costs him $1,500 a month. It?s a catastrophic coverage policy. And by anybody?s definition, a stroke that almost kills you and leaves you unable to swallow or speak is a catastrophe.

But the insurance company fought his claim. Despite objections from his neurologist and his neurosurgeon; the insurance company decreed he was well enough after a week to be tossed out of the intensive care? unit and be transferred to a much cheaper rehabilitation unit. Which is where he was for two days, before he suffered a second stroke.

Over coffee, his doctors told me they deal with this all the time. No matter what kind of insurance you have, they both said, the insurance company?s default position is to deny coverage; a lot of people take that first refusal at face value and stop fighting. Other patient?s families keep badgering the insurance companies. They?re the ones who end up having more covered.

It?s a game to the insurance companies, said one doctor. It?s the system. Anyone who tells you America has the world?s finest healthcare system is lying. It?s merely the most expensive.

I?m Charles Jaco and that?s Jacology.

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