One of the headaches I'm dealing with is switching insurance from an Obamacare plan to Medicare (with all its pieces). And I'm seeing that there are more levels to this onion than I knew....
In the past, all I'd need to do to change insurance companies is to show my new card to each service provider. Now, I have to make sure that all the secondary components (Parts B, D and G) are paid for and are in sync. This may be the easy part of things. Getting all providers to switch over the card (issues with Part D, drug coverage) is something else. I've just fount that Caremark has no ability for me to make this change online. Therefore, I might have to open up a new Caremark account (with new email address) AND get my doctor to write new prescriptions for everything I need. AARGH!
Why did I have a rude awakening?
In the past, I paid $50 for a 3 month supply of test strips. Without coverage (remember, Caremark does not have my new plan on file yet), the same strips cost $350. AARGH! No wonder why poor people go without. Our system is designed to rip off people by default.
As you can guess, I now support single payer health care. This will never happen here, but it is a nice dream....
1 comment:
It is frustrating. I spent over a half an hour on the phone to straighten out a $27 charge that shouldn't be there. This is after trying to figure out if I should be dealing with my health care provider, Medicare, or the Medicare insurance supplement supplier. The system is anything but transparent, and when they try to provide more transparency in a manner dictated by law, it gets even more confusing. What is most frustrating, is that correcting this simple error (still not corrected) involved hours of work by employees of the insurance provider and Medicare. I am convinced that most the high cost of medical treatment in the US is supporting the insurance industry, rather than the medical providers. I agree that a single payer system may be necessary to get rid of the excessive overhead. I am concerned that it will just trade the overhead of the insurance industry for the overhead of a large government bureaucracy.
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