I received a letter today from a company that wanted to know if anyone else was responsible for my injury last December. The insurer wanted to lay off some or all of the cost to someone else, if they were at fault. I can't argue their position, and I have to admit that though insurance companies are nobody's favorite, I felt a little guilty having to point out that it was me, all me, no one else at fault, no one else to blame, so sorry, no recovery for you. And when I think of the fact that the only reason I was able to bill them was because I'd paid for a month's extension on the insurance that IBM gave me, I feel as if somewhere my name got a big red checkmark next to it, with the notation to examine any claims with my name on it, very closely.
Sorry, guys. Honest.
2 comments:
Hee! I'm not sure if you and I agree on this or not, but I think insurance companies are one of the main problems in American healthcare today. I think they try to be crooks whenever they can get away with it.
I think you're generally right, but I wouldn't call them crooks as a rule. (Occasionally, yeah.) What I think is that they are in the business of making money by paying as little as they can get away with, as rarely as they can, and getting recompensed for it whenever possible. When I heard of that girl who died in California because the insurance company wouldn't pay for some procedure, labeling it experimental (though apparently it was not, really), I thought they were being harsh. Yet I think people who treat insurance as just another money fund that they can draw on at will are as much a problem. Thats why I felt a bit guilty. I paid about $400 for that one month's coverage; I got $20,000 back. I know, the idea is that you pay every month and that the total is more than they have to pay out; this time, I lucked out. I just don't like lucking out if it means screwing someone else -- and you gotta believe that somewhere an actuary just jacked up rates to cover that nineteen thou plus difference.
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