Thursday, July 23, 2009

Obama is wrong!

***Disclaimer: If you love Obama and this post could potentially harm our friendship, please stop reading.

President Obama recently cited three health care organizations that are doing a great job. He said they should be models we could follow as a nation. One being a certain health care company we happen to have our insurance through. If how this company operates is any indication of where our health care is heading; we are in trouble!

We happen to have double coverage so the contrast between the two is very easy to see. Let me just point out a few. I will refer to Obama's favorite as "O" and the other as "W".

1) When Marc hurt his arm and the recommendation was to have surgery right away, we were going to have to wait up to two weeks before a Dr. who is covered under "O" could have an operation room we could use. With "W" we were able to have his surgery within 72 hours.

2) When Lucy was born, we added her to "O" via their website when she was about four days old. We were then sent multiple bills and were being told that Lucy was not covered. After multiple phone calls and late notices on bills, "O" said that there was some sort of a glitch with their website and so she was not added in time. We then had to provide them with a copy of her birth certificate and work with HR to get her added and get the bills paid.

We added Lucy to insurance "W" via their website and experienced no problems.

3) Another time, we kept getting bills for Lucy stating that insurance "O" paid nothing on her office visits while insurance "W" did and we still owed money. Confused since we should not have to be paying anything with double coverage, we investigated. Apparently Lucy will have to rack up over $500 in medical bills before insurance "O" will pay a dime. This includes well baby visits where she gets preventative care!

This is the plan that we evidently chose. Can I just say that my husband has a doctorate and I have a masters, I'd like to think we are fairly intelligent people. We sat down together and chose what we thought would be the best plan for our family. I can assure you, neither one of us realized we would have to pay $500 out of our own pockets before our insurance company would pay anything. Do they hire people to make things complicated?

Well, I could go on but I won't. Oh, if you're wondering why I am not using the actual company names, it's because my husband works for "O" and I am worried it may have some effect on his job. How is that for big brother?

5 comments:

Christine said...

I agree, insurance is a nightmare!!! We have had to switch several time sin our married lives and each time I truly dread it. I can never seem to figure out what will actually be covered and how much it will cost. This whole health care reform is nuts!

Becky said...

I hope enough people are concerned and informed so we all don't end up in a socialized medicine predicament!

JMadd said...

Thanks for this post. I do know that insurance in this country needs help, but Obama's plan isn't the way to do it. Right now, insurance is going to kill me and Rob. Now that I'm unemployed, were left with only his coverage, which will cost roughly a fourth of Rob's income once we have kids.

Cheryl said...

Amen! And that's just one example!

The Wilsons said...

I agree, I agree, I agree. Hopefully others in the country agree. We could be headed for disaster. Hopefully others speak up!