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The Department of Redundancy Department
Dec. 19th, 2011 01:17 pmOn Friday, I received the membership card for my health insurance (CareFirst) and a huge letter asking me six pages of questions regarding pre-existing conditions so that they may pre-ignore them, the last question being, I shit you not, "Any known departure from good health not previously mention [sic] in this questionnaire for which treatment or advice may or may not have been sought."
Oh, and failure to return it within 10 days (and it was dated December 9), "will result in claims being denied." Giving me precisely 0 working days to work on this.
Unfortunately, this quest to maximize shareholder profits by exempting my existence as a pre-existing condition was minimalized by the grudging admission that due to a pesky law passed in '97, if my current insurance company told my new insurance company that I was covered without lapse, they had to cover me too.
My current insurance company is (drumroll please): CareFirst.
So this morning I started the process of telling CareFirst that I'm covered by CareFirst and thus CareFirst needs to send CareFirst a letter saying that there will be no lapse between my coverage by CareFirst and my coverage by CareFirst, lest CareFirst reject any claims associated with the issues currently covered in full by CareFirst.
And to ice the cake? The person answering the phone at CareFirst? COULD NOT JUST HANDLE THIS INTERNALLY. I actually HAVE to follow the steps in the paragraph above. Except that the second person I called at CareFirst told me something completely different. (Actually, they didn't deny that they had to send themselves a letter, only that I'm not allowed to do it, my company Human Resources person has to do it. Because while I can give the policy numbers that cover me, I'm apparently not authorized to shift my own policy.)
Anybody who wants to fight with me over "Obamacare" or claim national healthcare is a bad idea must first explain in 250 words or less why we as a nation are better off under private insurance bullshit like this.
Oh, and failure to return it within 10 days (and it was dated December 9), "will result in claims being denied." Giving me precisely 0 working days to work on this.
Unfortunately, this quest to maximize shareholder profits by exempting my existence as a pre-existing condition was minimalized by the grudging admission that due to a pesky law passed in '97, if my current insurance company told my new insurance company that I was covered without lapse, they had to cover me too.
My current insurance company is (drumroll please): CareFirst.
So this morning I started the process of telling CareFirst that I'm covered by CareFirst and thus CareFirst needs to send CareFirst a letter saying that there will be no lapse between my coverage by CareFirst and my coverage by CareFirst, lest CareFirst reject any claims associated with the issues currently covered in full by CareFirst.
And to ice the cake? The person answering the phone at CareFirst? COULD NOT JUST HANDLE THIS INTERNALLY. I actually HAVE to follow the steps in the paragraph above. Except that the second person I called at CareFirst told me something completely different. (Actually, they didn't deny that they had to send themselves a letter, only that I'm not allowed to do it, my company Human Resources person has to do it. Because while I can give the policy numbers that cover me, I'm apparently not authorized to shift my own policy.)
Anybody who wants to fight with me over "Obamacare" or claim national healthcare is a bad idea must first explain in 250 words or less why we as a nation are better off under private insurance bullshit like this.
