Originally Posted By: LeeG

High deductible major medical is pretty inexpensive and well worth it. Sorry for the continued hijack.


Sorry, but bulls(*&7t. Double bull#@&@T.

I'm fed up with this party line, and I'm calling out any provider of a HDMM plan that actually lets you get to the dammed deductible with routine healthcare expenses and the occasional ER visit. I've been playing this game for almost 8 years now, and my attempt at humor before was actually a fairly accurate description of the sh&^&^t that I had to put up with with the HDMM plans I've tried and now that I'm uninsured, I'm seeing even more of the vast scam up close and personal.

When I was clawing my way to meet a deductible, Labcorp and Quest and the Dr.'s Offices would send the insurance company a bill - for the Dr. it was $90. Then the insurance company would "Reprice" the bill to $64. Then they would make a determination based on some arcane formula if the $64 even aplies to the deductible. More often than not it didn't, so yes, it's nice to have a lower bill, but so what? It's not going to apply to the deductible. Same goes for the Lab bills - they'd reprice the bills from $450 to $80 and then in some random formula again, some were applicable to the deductible, others not.

I had an ER visit last year, got some stuff in my eye, needed it scraped out. They repriced some, not all of the bills, half didn't apply to the deductible and all were my responsibility. An ER visit that cost me $2,400 ended up applying about $900 to my deductible.

So we went to the cash/pay as you go program, and you know what? The bastards don't care that I am willng to pay my bill on the spot with no administrative overhead on their part, no rebilling mambo - I want to pay the same $64 they would have gotten from the insurance company, but no, they offer a discount of 15% so my bill is $84. Big deal. They have already demonstrated they will take $64 for a visit, I'll give them the same for no hassle.

I'm extremely angry right now an this topic is, by my own fault, way off the rails, but the cost of HEALTH CARE is why I'm thinking about long-term economic survival at this time, and why I think it's important to discuss.