I have been avoiding writing about this for weeks now but like the Sword of Damocles it has been hanging over me--- only this time the horse hair has finally snapped. Health Insurance. A subject so vile, so hated, so fear-inducing one only need whisper it to give me migraines, ulcers and palpitations all at once. And then I’d have to figure out if my insurance covered me for any of those.
When I decided to return to live in the USA I realized at once that this was something I would have to sort out before even sticking a toe out of the plane. On previous visits I was able to purchase travel insurance which gave excellent coverage for even extended visits. Back in Britain we have, as everyone knows, a National Health Service which makes visits to doctors, stays in hospitals and just about everything, except medication, free. Your prescriptions cost a set price so there are no sky high charges for medications. But---and this can be a big BUT—this does not mean there are no problems. There can be long waits to see specialists, hospital wards can be unpleasant and certain medications can be denied to you. Enter Health Insurance UK style.
Yes, I admit it, I had Health Insurance in the UK. Why? Because like most sane people I prefer staying in a hospital that resembles a luxury hotel rather than one that is like a bunkhouse, I prefer choosing my own specialists to see rather than the ones with whom my doctor is associated and I like seeing them as soon as possible. The charge for this when I left the UK was about one quarter of what I have to pay here in these United States.
In the US if you are buying your own insurance you first have to decide whether to go for an HMO, a PPO or, at a certain age or with pre-existing conditions, a POS---the 3 different types of insurance which dictate which doctors you may see and what you will pay to see them. I was channeled into the POS (Point of Sale; don’t ask me why) so that I could go out of network. If you are reading this in the UK you may not be able to follow this by now. But wait! There’s more! You then have to find what your coverage is. This includes figuring out co-insurance, co-payments, deductibles, in-network, out-of-network, out-of-pocket. … Did someone run a course in this which I missed when I moved to the UK? What idiot sat down and figured out how to make health insurance so complicated? You have to remember to get referrals to see your specialists (unless they are out-of-network), authorizations for certain procedures and pre-certification for hospital admissions. In Britain I picked up the phone to call the Customer Service Rep at my health insurers, told them my GP (who over here is a PMP---Primary Healthcare Physician!!!) wanted me to see a specialist or I needed an op and that was it. Finito! End of story! And I never heard that their shareholders were complaining about not earning enough dividends. You wonder why I have palpitations??
I have a theory: America is run by the Pharmaceutical companies who are in cahoots with the Insurance companies. Unless a drug goes generic the insurance rarely covers it. Medications are what will put you in your grave --- the cost of them that is. And medications are now permitted to be advertised on television! If you weren’t a hypochondriac before, you’ll certainly be one after an hour of television viewing in the USA. If the little green men ever come down from Mars one day, the pharmaceutical companies will go into overdrive in an attempt to get them hooked on some drug to make them breathe better in Earth’s atmosphere. And then those little green men will watch an hour of telly and come away believing that Americans are a race of constipated, dry-eyed, impotent, depressed, heart burnt folk whose women all suffer with PMT and don’t mind sitting down with Jamie Lee Curtis to discuss their irregularity problems while both desperately needing to pee and suffering with restless leg syndrome…
Restless leg syndrome? Didn’t that used to be called “boredom”?
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