I don't understand how they can do that.

Is it because it's not life threatening?

Another reason FOR the Public Option.

Larry

Two observations...

First, the article doesn't say whether or not her family's ins. was in effect from before she was born. If it wasn't, her condition qualifies as a pre-existing condition for which the family is not seeking insurance, they are seeking subsidy.

I can appreciate why an insurance company would want to deny coverage in this case and many like it. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders first and foremost.

Health insurance, traditionally conceived, is a gamble where the insurance company bets that you won't need coverage and the consumer bets they will. This situation is entirely different. The girl is going to need ongoing lifelong treatment. And that's going to be expensive.

Maybe that's only one observation.

You might think that this is an argument in support of insurance companies, but its not. Its an argument for why we need Universal Single Payer. Coverage, not insurance.

I don't understand how they can do that.
Is it because it's not life threatening?
#1 | Posted by Lisa

"This practice has become so rampant in the industry that a recent study by the California Nurses Association found that a whopping 21 percent of all insurance claims filed in the first half of 2009 in the state of California were denied by insurers"

More likely, it threatens the bottom line.

Good point, Doc.

This really isn't happening, I know cuz many righties who regularly post here told me insurance companies are the good guys and we only have to fear the evil gubmint bureaucrats who will use rationing to prevent little girls from getting the treatments they need.

It is not unusual for commercial benefit plans to exclude hearing assisted devices

Sounds to me like the evil employer was trying to save money by excluding hearing assisted devices.

I'm sure they could have paid a little bit more and had this coverage. Evil Evil people.

Sounds to me like the evil employer was trying to save money by excluding hearing assisted devices.
#7 | Posted by mysterytoy

Tell me that was intentional and I'll give you a FF, toymastery.

All vets should register with the VA because they have a very favorable avenue for getting hearing aides and tests that would cost a fortune otherwise. A bunch of old fogies were talking about it on Veterans Day. I don't know the details, but it may be worth looking in to if you're in need.

My dad is getting his hearing aid from the VA; his regular insurance didn't cover it.

From what I hear (and I had a hard time believing it until my dad confirmed it), those things can easily cost over $10,000. WTF?

those things can easily cost over $10,000. WTF?

easy there 101 goddammit!!!! We don't want the thread to change direction to the hearing aid company (which gets to charge $10k because medicare pays it) when we have a private insurance company to jump on.

the last thing we need to do is analyze those "other" problems of healthcare in this country.

please stick to private insurance companies and leave those other folks alone.

Contact VA
Each VA benefit has its own eligibility requirements.
For specific information about eligibility call VA at:
1-800-827-1000
Health Benefits 877-222-8387
Education Benefits 888-442-4551
VA Life Insurance 800-669-8477
Office of SGLI 800-419-1473
CHAMPVA 800-733-8387
Environmental Health 800-749-8387
Headstones (status
of claims only) 800-697-6947
Telecommunication
Device for Deaf (TDD) 800-829-4833
Direct Deposit 877-838-2778

"From what I hear"

FF

The old school ones are still available, the really big ones that hang over your ear. They don't cost anywhere near $10K. Most people think that it makes them look really old or that there is something wrong with them so they hold out or kick down for the tiny, high tech version.

"the last thing we need to do is analyze those "other" problems of healthcare in this country."

YOu mean like the part of Medicare Part D that forbids the government from negotiating for lower prices??? Or the exemption from anti-trust laws that the health insurance companies enjoy or that they are allowed to actually collude with each other????
YOu are right there are many things we need to address.

This really isn't happening....

#6 | Posted by danni

Let me tell you what happened this week. I don't know how I can tell you that this is completely true, especially considering how I routinely break all the norms and rules of polite society, but anyway, this is true........

My insurance carrier through work is CIGNA. This week, I contracted some bug and was home one day ill. I'm all better now. On a trip to the pharmacy, my wife decided to go ahead and fill a regular perscription that her autistic son uses. The pharmacy informed us that both boys are not covered by the insurance anymore.

So I called the insurance company, they said that the boys were removed by my company. Of course my company says the insurance company did it.

Now, here's the fun part. One boy was removed in october and one was removed in november, which absolutely means it was not a single clerical error. nor were we informed or contacted or anything. They finally got it fixed, with neither the company or the insurance company accepting responsibility.

So I told both of them that i felt like, since I pay a very high and regular premium, and the company pays a very high cost too, that I have a right to a written explanation. Both the insur co and my company said, paraphrased, 'don't hold your breathe but your request has been noted, maybe, but in the meanwhile go fuck yourself'.

To me, the issue here is that this kind of behavior, whoever caused it, is outright fraud. if it was a mistake, how could someone do it twice? How many other people get accidentally booted off for a month or two?

Insurance and the government as well, cover very little, if anything, that has to do with hearing and hearing loss.

Seems like the insurance companies are getting between the patient and the proper care.

Some states have Medicaid coverage for hearing aids, however, Florida does not cover hearing aids for adults who are Medicaid recipients. ...

Medicare also does not cover hearing aids (to view Medicare's full statement on non-coverage of routine hearing exams and hearing aids, go to Medicare.gov's ...

Evil Evil Government and their evil government healthcare coverage

Evil Evil Government and their evil government healthcare coverage
#22 | Posted by mysterytoy at 2009-11-20 02:55 PM

So, we can at last all agree that rational health care is full and total coverage for each and every individual. From the unborn to the unemployed and undocumented. All-inclusive health care is logical and necessary.

The difficulty for HealthCorp is describing how not to take advantage of the existing system, infrastructure, fee-based data-management oriented prioritized de-centralized processes and to spoil them as resources pending unfavorable outcome. Their scaring tactics work when people act irrationally. Irrationality cyclically favors an environment of emotional insecurity. We're not made of money, but are being bled-off in exchange - this may as well be Peruvian human harvesting if you are denied based on anything, let alone "pre-existing" ie BORN "conditions". What optimal set of "values" equate to only caring for people with "conditions fully supported upon birth"? We're incomplete at birth anyhow, what is known are the primarily evident values, the interactability is still limited to grasping movements and crying, so I think waiving rights to unforeseen neurological development including total inoperability might prove difficult. Although, the baby had nine months to prepare for that contract - the nerve.

Fewer people alive means fewer reasons (legitimate votes) to nationalize resources. Katrina was not an accidental disaster insultingly portrayed by a ruthless Bush administration as their foremost concern, but purposefully executed through deliberate incompetence and abusive prioritized spending funnels, allowing thousands of the poor people to die in horrific, unknowable circumstances, hundreds of thousands of families to lose their homes and even their legal dominion over the loss of their assets and their insurable recoup.

The regulated bubble hemorrhaging convinces us of immanent doom, but is actually very self-serving to those pre-invested who orchestrate the contracting, outsourcing and our own stock exchanges thousands of daily pseudo-monetary transactions as unbelievably vacant, coked and smoked, predictably predatory adults spending their lives engineering the fueling of crisis and profit. Their invented think tanks manufacture profiteering scenarios and ignore non-supportive data or malign what they can, misdirecting all honest inquiries as watching AEI symposiums will indicate.

Still perched upon the cusp of it's long overdue extinction, the Healtheou Insuratata Corporatinus is fighting unto it's last drop of prerequisite coverage fees by spending over 1 million per day (stated by Sherrod Brown this morning's Washington Journal) "lobbying" these irreproachable, visionary political representatives and twisting their tender ears with lots of asset improvement methods - such as "pocketing loot", "accepting bribes" and "offshore enrichment". As close company the Nationalope Bankaticus has already shed it's skin of monetary allegiance after decimating, over-inflating and leveraging away the dollar in lieu of it's more insidious form the Globulusta Bankaticallus releasing spores of it's own pseudo-backed currency which are also spreading "toxic assets" while absorbing all local financial institutions at a fit-to-burst rate. And some people argue the theory of evolution.. tsk.

How that has been perpetrated is apparently our actual debate, not if it has actually happened. Should we retain our current health insurance model our dollars still won't buy as much "qualifying coverage" with anything less than the one government insurer who actually controls costs, regardless directives from representatives of the WHO or the AMA and the CBO's alleged cost analysis. Our best interests must be served and the common needs fulfilled. At minimum we need rational regulation and at minimum oversight. Every foreign correspondence, every regulation, every drug trial, every penny spent should be made available publicly online - our shopping dollar might not be best spent in Chinese knockoff virus labs.

To the health insurance industry, in the words of Leon: "Wake up! Time to die!"

Nationalized Healthcare is basically built around the placebo effect. Left untreated most illness will be healed by the immune system.

This is why countries that have it make you wait so long for life saving procedures.

Same thing with the economy. If you leave it alone it will eventually fix itself.

This is what the dems are betting on anyway but it is a fact.

101 and hagbard are right. VA covers vets. I am currently in the process of getting a hearing aid. My insurance has a one time $1,000 pay.

I also heard from my doctor who treats my diabetes that all veterans with diabetes are eligible for $250/mo. I am checking into that next time I go in for the hearing thing. My insurance covers most of my diabetes costs, but I won't refuse free money from the VA

.....stupid kid just went deaf to make the Repubs look bad......

...I am currently in the process of getting a hearing aid. My insurance has a one time $1,000 pay....

For both ears or just one?

They can make hearing aids now where you can barely even tell a person is wearing one.

And look on the bright side -- when you're around a bunch of talkative women, or some woman is giving you a list of chores you need to do, you can totally ignore them and later say you forgot you had your hearing aid on "OFF."