Microblog Memes

When I had top surgery (getting the fat sucked out of my tits so I could put an “M” on my drivers license, funny how many jobs fell through right I9 verification…), I did a lot of research into what I needed to do to get it covered. I got letters from doctors and therapists, I’d been in hormone therapy for a while, and my policy said it covered it. I checked with a rep, they said yeah, you just pay for it up front and submit for reimbursement.

So I took out a $5500 loan, had surgery, and then attempted to file for reimbursement. Turns out that my specific policy, from my step-dad’s employer had a rider that exempted it. Somewhere buried in the fine print, didn’t come up until after I had taken out the loan.

It’s pretty common for trans people to end up turning to sex work to finance their medical care (and tbh, survival in general). That’s how I joined that statistic.

They literally don't even have a product.

Then don't buy it.

(I'm tired of the oversimplification that gets voted to the top of any social media)

Is this a US thing that I’m to Europe to understand?

Insurance must be the only industry that actively tries not to deliver the service that its customers pay them for.

My favorite is when they send me and letter in the US mail for the sole purpose of telling me they decided to cover our medication the doctor prescribed. The language they use is infuriating.

As if we should call them back and praise them, be grateful for their service, and just ignore that I’m paying them.

The product is you not going broke in case you break your arm.

Doesn't mean that the american healthcare system is good, it's a disaster. But claiming insurance is a bad thing is moronic aswell. These are the people that want "free healthcare" like most oft europe, not realizing that the "free" part is because wie habe (somewhat) mandatory health insurance.

Want to hear something crazier? They don’t even have doctors. Non doctors are telling your doctor what is medically necessary.

I hate our healthcare system and especially the parasites that run health insurance companies, but they do provide a product.

1. They pool our money together so that the ones that need healthcare can afford it. Barely anyone can afford out-of-pocket cancer treatment or a stay in the ICU after a serious accident. It could be a serious pain in ass to get insurance to pay sometimes if they even do, but overall, they do pay. If they never paid, we'd have a revolution by now. The last time they started with not paying, people started demanding change, which almost lead to the public option.
2. They offer a check on healthcare providers that want to over -treat and -prescribe to charge more money, or doctors that go rogue with whacky ideas. Since the general population doesn't know much about medicine, doctors would be able to prescribe all sorts of illegitimate treatments if we didn't have a body making sure that their recommendations were legit.

I agree that they do fucked up things, like withhold on pay outs, deny interventions that may save lives, charge way too much, and lobby to maintain or even improve their wealth and power, but they do still offer a product. I'm someone that is lucky enough to have access to 100% free government healthcare in the US. Even with that, I'm often jealous of people that have private insurance because I find many benefits to their healthcare over mine.

If we want to improve our healthcare, I think it would be best to acknowledge the reality of the situation rather than exaggerate it.