ExRx.net

My COBRA insurance expired last month and i had to apply for private health insurance.I applied with Blue Cross and they denied my application due to a herniated disc injury in 2000. Even though the injury was covered under workers comp. Blue Cross decided not to cover me. My back is fine now and has been for several years. I have full mobility and flexibility and no daily functional limitations whatsoever. They did say i could be covered under a high-risk policy which would cost me a grand a month, rather than the initial $250. I'm not going to shell out a grand for insurance. I asked them to just preclude any back issues but they said no. Kaiser also turned me down.I'm not sure what to do at this point- maybe check with a broker? Maybe i should move to Sweden and become a citizen. Health care is free to seniors! Has anyone else been denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition?

Bob, I feel for you, but what do you think all the hub bub about the health insurance reform is all about? Exactly your position. The demo's want to stop this, but they also want to take over the whole thing, and the Republicans want to stop the democrats, and keep the insurance companies in, and I say compromise, because I'm pretty much going to be in the same boat with you in a year or two. Shoot both sides.
Tim

Escape to Canada

Standardized health care for Americans will never be realized in my opinion. I may just have to move out of the country to get health care. Maybe Canada or France. I hear Thailand has good health care on the cheap.

Australia!

We had to go there on an emergency basis for a problem my wife had about 2 years ago. We were very pleased with the quality, the speed with which things got done, and the low costs (we self-paid). A full MRI of the brain with the radiologist's reading included cost 300 Ausie dollars! Scheduled within 1 day, my wife was called back to the MRI room within 10 minutes of the appointment, the radiologist had called our doctor with the results before we could call him, and done in a very clean, modern facility with very professional courteous people. That was typical of our experience there. A night in the hospital cost us around $400.

Ironically, this was during the election campaign there, so every evening we watched the news and heard the politicians talking about how they were going to fix Australia's ailing health-car system. If the average Aussie could get sick in the US one time, they'd be pretty thankful for what they have!

When i hear stories like this, i thank my lucky stars for the NHS.

While I agree that it's good we have the NHS in the UK, I don't think it's anything like the best service the government can provide.

I'd say as a starting argument, that the NHS is 50% effective. If you get hit by a car, then it's all good. You get treated, operated on etc and it's all taken care of. If you have other less serious problems, then it lets you down very quickly. I should maybe say 'less life threatening' than 'serious', as some conditions are not 'life threatening' but are quite serious and debilitating to the person that is suffering.
The NHS is very good at keeping you on drugs for the rest of your life,and do nothing else, rather than address the problem through exercise or nutrition for example. They will say 'yes, you need a new hip, but your too young to be concidered, we will do it when you are 70'.

I am, of course, speaking from personal experience. Some of you will know my wife has quite a few health issues. I do have bones to grind, as I find myself diagnosing her problems and providing her with her physiotherapy advice myself. They treat her as an acute case and not cronically. I'm fed up of taking her to see physio's that tell her to stretch this and that, but seem oblivious to the fact she just walked in their office on crutches, or her hip is too painful to do the squats and exercises they want her to do. Oh! and don't forget the fact that as the physio gets up and walks around, their posture is like a banana and their feet point at 10 and 2 o'clock respectivley!

I could go on, but I think the problem is down to profit. The NHS has no real insentive to excel at what they do, they get paid just the same (and very poorly paid at that).

Now, if the NHS gave me the money they have spent on my wife so far, especially the drug money, i'm sure I could spend it more wisely.

I've just spent the last six hours on the phone with several large insurance companies. All of them told me the same thing, that because of the herniated disc injury, the underwriters will not approve my application. They don't want my money. Now that's ironic. It didn't matter that this injury occurred 9 years ago and is no longer an issue. Underwriters are especially strict in Calif. Even with a good bill of health from my last physical and a colonoscopy with negative results, they still won't touch me.

That is exactly why we need health care reform. I think the public option would be the best part. It would keep the insurance companies from raping people.

I read and understand the whole problem of yours related to insurance.Well I totally agree with my above member that we should look for our health care reform.
That may be solution for such kind of problems.Well As per your problem is concerns I think that the Idea of Sweden citizen ship is also preferable..

It's actually free for everyone. Well, sort of free anyhow. It's about $20 to see a doctor, maybe $40 if you go to the ER. No one has to pay more than $130 per 12-month period for medical appointments, and $260 for medicines. There's also a similar set of rules for dental care, I don't know the details though.

Sorry to hear about your trouble with the insurance, I hope you can find a way to sort it out.

OK, going on a rant here on the health insurance thing. Helena, I've lived in Danmark, and I know the Scandinavians, while Socialist, have a pretty good system going on.I got a root canal over there and the Military got charged minimally for it. Now to ours. Bob, the problem is we have way too much ideology going on right now. Preexisting conditions are a bad thing. I came down with skin cancer (basal) and right now no one will touch me. What the Govt is proposing, is to force health insurers to cover pre=existings, which will skyrocket prices, and to boot, if I don't get insurance, they'll put me in jail. The other option I have is to go bankrupt paying for it out of my pocket. All that said, I agree with the insurance companies NOT covering preexistings. Why should they pay for an accident after it's happened? These idiots in congress are going on party lines. I got news for "em. As should be evidenced in Massachussets a few days ago, there is a new party arising, the party of throw the bums out and get down, get dirty, and fix things.
Tim

First notice the ranking of the US health care.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Here is an article from Reuters about preventable death.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN07651650

Despite that, the US spends WAY more on health care than any other country, in some cases many magnitudes more.

That shows that the problem is the wasteful spending and billions of dollars in insurance company profits.

More than 3000 people in the US die every year because they don't have health insurance.

Part of the high costs is from the poor going to the emergency room. Those costs get passed on to us. So we are already paying for it in the most inefficient way possible.

Those are the reasons this has to be done.

So believing a lot of a hyperbolic nonsense and trying to bring back the party that caused this financial meltdown does not seem like a very good idea to me.

It's all propaganda from the party that is 100% owned by our corporate overlords. Granted the Democrats are partially owned, but in the absence of a good third party, at least they keep the quisling party at bay.

That WHO report sounds pretty sketchy - it seems to be biased towards high scores in homogeneous populations. The big problem in the US is not poor health care, it's poor health choices, ultimately caused by the food industry.

I saw this on TV last night and about fell off my couch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BJJGzbN3fg

Whatever problem you have, you can count on the federal government to make it worse.

Not that they listen, but how about we stop corn subsidies for starters.

I don't know how free(ish) healthcare could ever be a bad thing. Unless you're the insurance companies. Even if the health care is crap, it's still better than nothing.

I'm in Scotland/UK. We have the NHS. If you have an overactive TFL and inhibited glute medius, the NHS are terrible. If you have some kind of serious illness, then they're amazing.

The NHS does get heavily criticised, though. I've done it myself but, I seen a different perspective. It was a documentary or some article (can't remember) and, someone said the biggest problem with the NHS is that the current generation have never had to live without the NHS....

Kind of changed my opinion. It's very easy to take for granted and therefore, be overly critical but, I would ask anyone in the UK to imagine not having the NHS. Quite a scary thought. Particulary if you've either been seriously ill or, had family members who have been.

KPj