Why is health care coverage important?

Question

please make serious answers

Answer 1

It isn't. Don't diss me yet - read on. We had coverage when my husband had a kidney removed for cancer. The insurance company tried not to pay by calling it elective surgery. What right did they have to call it elective? We had to get documentation to prove it wasn't elective. Then what minuscule amount they did pay left us will bills that we were paying on for 15 years!!! We paid for the health insurance, about the same amount over time that the cancer surgery cost. We were no further ahead, only further behind.

We finally cut the insurance strings. We dropped insurance and had two major ER visits in 10 years since. One resulted in 3 day hospitalization with respiratory therapy. Not spending the 400+ a month on insurance, we were able to pay off the bill for the ER visit with x-rays and all relateds for a broken bone immediately. We were able to pay on time for the 3 day hospital stay, ER visit and all relateds in 5 years or less, sometimes getting a cash discount up to 20%! We found that the bill was much lower and only actual charges and reasonable amounts, so we didn't need an insurance company "fighting" for lower prices, we just got them.

Our experience previously was pumped up prices and charges for services NEVER received for which we needed the insurance company to battle. Then the insurance company wouldn’t even battle the excess charges. If we said anything about them they would say, “never mind, you won’t be paying then anyway. We’ll cover them.” That wasn’t the point! The point was the service was NOT rendered and I didn’t want ANYONE to pay for services not rendered! In reality, the insurance company sided with the hospital on fraudulent charges and we ended up paying total balances for charges for bad service or no service. We've never been refused care for saying "we pay cash" when asked about insurance. We've always been able to set up payments if we didn't have the total amount available. We are not independently wealthy, but solidly middle class with 4 children

We are much better off without insurance. We are more likely to explore our options and not run to the doc. We also use many alternatives which work better and insurance would never pay for. One employer wanted to provide insurance so badly, that when we refused they set up a cash account that contained all they would have paid for our insurance. My husband was able to use that at the dentist when he needed some major work. The insurance would have only been health not dental.

If we want to fix the broken health care system we need to take the gambling of insurance out of the equation and put personal responsibility back in. Let the free market drive prices instead of insurance, fraud and greed. Nationalized health care will only make it worse, and in the end more people will be forced to use allopathic medicine and third party, detached payment.

We are health insurance free and plan to stay that way until the gov't comes with guns and forces us to enroll. Hopefully it will not come to that, but reason will prevail.

BTW - did I mention that we stay healthier on purpose so as not to have to pay the doctors out of our pocket. There is nothing quite as efficient as personal accountability.

Answer 2

Basically, it is important for an individual to have health coverage to protect his/her self from an outrageously large bill from an emergency or critical medical situation.

Answer 3

In case you get Hodgkin's lymphoma. It can strike out of the blue but is nearly 100% curable but it costs a LOT of money to get it taken care of.

Same thing with severe auto accidents...