Have Insurance Companies Pulled The Scam of the Century?

Sigh. I don’t like insurance—unless, that is, I need it. In my opinion, many people fall into this category. Monthly premiums are expensive, particularly for health insurance, and you don’t always get your money’s worth.

Talk to neighbors or listen to the news, and you’ll hear the stories of people who spend thousands in premiums each year, but don’t go to the doctor more than once or fill a prescription. Meaning, the money spent on premiums was essentially lost, wasted. The doctor visit could have been paid for out-of-pocket and the money spent on premiums saved in an interest-earning account or invested.

More often heard, however, are the stories of people with chronic illnesses or fatal diseases who pay their monthly premiums diligently, but then the insurance companies refuse to pay a claim or, at least, do not pay it without the patient involving many expensive long distance phone calls and attorneys. The experience of battling an insurance company is enough to make people ill by itself.

Yet, we cannot forget the group that has no health insurance because their policy application has been rejected due to pre-existing conditions, because the policyholders have had their policy terminated by the insurance company because of a pre-existing condition or other reasons, and the people who simply cannot afford the monthly premiums.

The entire situation makes me feel as though insurance is the greatest scam every pulled on the human race, and we fell for it.

It’s difficult to find a physician or a hospital that will accept a patient without insurance. And, it is often the insurance companies that determine if an expensive medical test will be conducted, if a medical procedure will be afforded the patient, the length of a hospital stay, or what prescriptions are allowed at the pharmacy under a particular plan.

It’s as if the insurance companies are in control of the health care field, as if insurance companies are toll collectors in complete control of the pathway to health care; and no one can access the road to medical care without first paying the toll.

Yet, the rub is this: If you have insurance, if there comes a time when you need it, and if the company agree to pay the claim, the policy can be more valuable than gold.

Insurance companies are businesses. Their ultimate goal is to make a profit. And, now, our government is advocating that every uninsured American be mandated to purchase a health care plan. If health care reform contains this mandate, then either people will be forced to pay for private insurance or they will be forced to pay for government-sponsored insurance. In either case, the same issues regarding control of the health care system by the insurance providers remain—and, there would be additional problems and controls if our government became an insurance company that were in control of our health care.

It leads one to the question: Are the insurance companies responsible for health care being so expensive?

I began to wonder how insurance companies came to be, how America evolved from an era when citizens were primarily treated at home and hospitals didn’t exist. In searching the internet for answers, I came across the following thorough, informative, and interesting article regarding the history of insurance and health care as well as previous attempts at government insurance:

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/thomasson.insurance.health.us

In short, it explains that the insurance companies aren’t exactly the cause of rising health care costs; rather, it is the new technology and medical breakthroughs that are behind the increasing expenses.

Yet, insurance policies are expensive and seldom fair, working as the gatekeepers deciding who may be insured and who will not, dictating policy costs for each customer in such a way as to make certain that the company profits at the end of the year. As mentioned earlier, insurance companies are a business; we can’t fault them for doing what all businesses do—work to make a profit.

But, isn’t there a better way for Americans to have access to medical care on a more affordable and more even-playing field and without government control of health care? I admit that I don’t have the answer. As it is, insurance, in theory, is a pool in to which everyone pays and is allegedly allowed to draw assistance from for medical costs when necessary. Perhaps sometime in the future there will be an insurance pool that only requires premiums to be paid when the insurance is needed for a specific reason. But, then, that would quickly bankrupt the companies and put them out of business, leaving us all without the common pool of insurance assistance.

For all of the expense of monthly premiums, insurance certainly has its perks, sometimes preventing expensive doctor or hospital bills that would otherwise lead one to bankruptcy, helping to pay for expensive medications that would otherwise be unaffordable, or simply helping someone to be seen by a doctor.

So, is insurance a necessity or a scam? Only you can decide.