Thanks for the birthday present BCBS!

Trevor, the purpose of a health care system is not to generate as much profit as possible for insurance companies. It is to provide as much health care to people as efficiently as possible.

Doing so can involve companies seeking profits - the capitalist market system is a wonderful tool. But it is just that - a tool. Not a religion. If there’s a better way of getting better results, a more efficient way to expend resources measured in health outcomes rather than profits, it should be considered.

To the people who get turened down… ok is sucks for you… but what happened to the coverage you had?? Do you really expect to find out that you have some thing that cost hundreds of thousands to treat and then just walk up to an insurance company and be like “here is $300 a month now pay out a million bucks”. It’s like getting auto insurance after you got in a collision and asking them to cover you. More exactly it’s like while you are skidding into a colision and useing your cell phone to get a quote…

yr analogy is ABSURD. first, my coverage ran out due to being COBRA which has a time limit. i was on COBRA as i had become too old to be covered by my mother’s employers health plan. the auto collision analogy doesnt work. I was in an auto collision, that I was not at fault for. Because I was not at fault my auto insurance premiums stayed exactly the same. You are only penalized for an auto accident if it is your fault.

now, if you could kindly explain to me, how exactly a BIRTH DEFECT i was BORN WITH that is the source of my pre-existing condition is my fault, i will concede that you are right in your analogy. but, there is no effing way a birth defect that formed while i was still in my mother’s womb is my fault. by your analogy perhaps my mother should be uninsurable, being somehow at fault for creating my bad kidney in her womb. but she has health insurance, and i am left to die.

fuck off.

After college (9 years ago), I paid $260/month for COBRA from my mother’s employer-based health insurance. I thought this was expensive. Several months later, when I started a job that had no health coverage, I signed up for Trigon Blue Cross/Blue Shield at $76/month. The plan was decent (except no routine pregnancy coverage) but I also was fortunate enough to never have to deal with making a claim during the 18 mos. I was enrolled. Then I went to graduate school, where the out-of-pocket was inexpensive and the plan could be upgraded to a $1 million lifetime maximum for $150/year. Three years later, they took away that option and jacked up our share of the premium an equivalent amount, but cut the lifetime maximum to $500,000. Nice!

I finished graduate school a year ago, and was first paying private group health insurance in Canada (where I held a postdoc but didn’t permanently reside so wasn’t eligible for provincial healthcare even though I paid the same taxes) that cost $600 for the year. Presently, I hold a postdoc in Sweden and am eligible for government healthcare. I’ve only been here 2 weeks, and I haven’t yet seen a doctor. So, I’m okay for at least a year. But who knows what’ll happen when I return to the States. I may have to get married to my long-time partner, in order to have the opportunity to pay $150/month for coverage. I’ve been fortunate that I have been healthy but with each birthday, I feel less and less secure.

Advanced medical care? I’ve seen, in the publically founded health care system in Sweden, routine emergency PTCAs on heart attack patients, neonatal intensive care units where babies weighing under a pound at birth regularly survive, treatments for colon cancer, where even a few liver metastases can be removed for a cure (and they use totally cool ultrasound with contrast on the bare liver during the operation!), surgery for birth defects at specialised centers (so babies are flown across the country to get the best possible care)… I could go on, if I knew what the drive by troll meant with “advanced” medical care.

But what’s most impressive is that our preventive care system (pre-natal and well-baby) has practically eliminated eclampsia and amblyopia.

But what’s most impressive is that our preventive care system (pre-natal and well-baby) has practically eliminated eclampsia and amblyopia.

…is lying. Not merely about there being “no advanced medical care” available in Europe - that is right-wing flummery. I mean that he is lying about ever having lived in Europe. Someone who had lived in Europe could make up much more effective, because much more realistic, lies.