Enroned by the Health Insurers

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Passing the Buck
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Much of the health care spending of the United States is
devoted to trying to get someone else to pay the bills.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/22/opinion/22krugman.html?th&emc=th

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I certainly have to support Krugman's accusation here that our health insurers waste much of our monies that should be directed to health on bureaucracies focused on denying payments to the insured! My wife handles such things for our family. She must spend literally hours and hours, fax after fax, doing battle with our health insurance companies, getting them to pay that for which we are supposedly covered. She often wins battles amounting to many thousands of dollars in proper payments -- but not always. We are sometimes rescued by our caring doctors who forgive many thousands of dollars of payments due, but we still end up spending about 10% (tax deductible) of our family income on additional medical payments that are promised by our medical insurance contracts, but denied by the companies when the bills are presented to them!

I hate to think how those who either do not or cannot fight back are being routinely cheated with this ugly games playing! There ought to be punitive laws regulation this insurance company malpractice!