Fun with insurance.... ARRRRRGGGGHHH!

Pictures. Left: just a glimpse of the foolishness spattered all over my desk! Below, left: Our dog, Scout, on her way home from the beauty parlor. She obviously isn't worried about health care or insurance.

When you wake up in the morning and the first thing on your mind is a huge bill your insurance company won't pay but the hospital wants badly enough to send to collections... then you know the universe is out of kilter - or at least my particular universe.
A few points come to mind:

1. Do they really believe I'd have an MRI just for the fun of it?
2. Does the my doctor's office have any idea how much time and anxiety resulted from their "small" error in calling the wrong verification company to get pre-approval?
3. Does my doctor's office even care?
   
4. Is there not anyone in the business who understands the inverse relationship between mental/financial stress and physical healing?

OK, now I guess I put my finger exactly on the problem. So I'm going to say something that possibly sounds a little left-wing-whacko-liberal-socialistic. So be it. Here goes: Medicine and the provision of health care should be completely unrelated to means, finance, money, ability to pay etc. etc....

America must adopt a universal health care system, something that is paid for collectively, via taxes, and does not overlay and or interfere with care via the stress of payment, claims, mind-numbing and uncooperative phone calls and paperwork, rejection of claims... or anything other than "What can we do to solve the problem and get on with our lives."

I'm tired of people pointing at other countries - such as the U.K. - and saying smugly, "Well you're not saying we should have that kind of medical fiasco over here are you?"

Well, yes, I am. For all the faults and foibles and baggage and inefficiency of a national health-care plan, if my doctor ordered an MRI I might have to wait an inordinate amount of time, but I for sure wouldn't have my credit and my house on the line because some "I could care less" functionary or series of functionaries failed to jot the right "i" or cross the correct "t" and so I'm stuck with $1,500 worth of bills and - count 'em - over twenty hours of phone calls etc trying to straighten it out....

That all I'm saying - for now.
PEACE - and I mean that - DEREK