nyceve and others have already said it better, or at least with more details.
The nation's health care system is broken and dysfunctional, and is not serving the needs of the people. It's time to change it.
What's triggered this? I'm unspeakably angry. I've moved on from outraged, and pissed-off, and offended and even furious. I'm now in that coldly angry state... that doesn't thaw.
Why?
My wife is the breadwinner in this household. For years, she's been in a solid, reliable career, making decent money--and with benefits. We've truly been among the fortunate... though certainly nowhere near the haves and have mores. Which was fine; no complaints.
But a year and a half ago, she finally decided to cut loose and start to build her own business--and to consult part-time, while doing so, to help pay the bills. In doing so, we knew that meant we had to cover our own benefits. We budgeted that--probably inadequately, but at least we tried--into her rates. And we've done ok. No complaints.
But the health care benefits she'd had were not bad, and we simply took advantage of COBRA and extended that... which saved us from the trouble of trying to figure out how and where to get coverage for a while. There were, after all, plenty of other distractions with a new business, kids, an election, considering whether our young teen boys ought to be moved to Canada.... This past summer, I reminded her that we needed to figure out what to do when COBRA ran out. So about four months ago, we started looking....
We finally applied to Blue Shield through an agent. My health history is that I've never seen the inside of a hospital for anything other than a gastrointestinal bug that I probably got from eating in a restaurant--and that was in and out of a hospital's emergency room. I've rarely seen a doctor. I've never needed any prescriptions for anything on-going. My only health woes are minor allergies, and I've opted to not even use drugs to mitigate them.
Our sons... one's seen an urgent care once--for stitches on a finger. The other's been in and out of urgent care for stitches, a penny he swallowed as a little kid and so on. Typical transient kid health concerns. Last summer, he sprained the hell out of his foot. Urgent care confirmed it wasn't broken. We treated him with icepacks, made him stay off it... and got him to a chiropractor who treated him with some ultrasound and worked it (and helped a great deal, my son affirms). She determined that it appeared to have caused a case of what might be plantar fascitis (irritation of the tendon along the underside of the foot and the heel). So we worked with him to soothe that, make it go away and to protect his foot... including buying a set of orthotic inserts (which he wore when he was actually wearing shoes). He's been fine for months--enough so that he's actively taking a martial art and 'walking' on the mat in ways that would aggravate the hell out of a case of planta fascitis... if it still existed. He's fine.
My wife's overweight (and losing it...). It contributes to a very mild case of hypertension which is entirely controlled by very ordinary, not-expensive medications in very modest doses.
Blue Shield dithered, screwed around... and then rejected her completely.
They've been complaining ever since about not having everything they asked for (though they have, and when I call, I'm told that they do have everything) for the rest of us.
Yesterday's mail included a rejection for my son--because of plantar fascitis and because he'd had chiropractic treatment in the past six months.
Otherwise completely healthy... and rejected because he had (past tense) an injury to his foot, which briefly resulted in a plantar fascitis diagnosis (completely resolved).
I'm beyond words. Blue Shield wants to insure only those whose medical history is blank. Perhaps the already dead are their dream clientele.
I do know this... first, I'm going to withdraw the application for those of us who remain as-yet unrejected. I don't care to do business with them, even if they want us. And second, I am now unalterably, irrevocably committed to a single-payer health care system here, and to the expulsion of the insurance industry from health care.
They are now the enemy. As bad as terrorists.