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14 points

But the problem is that medical costs are only as high as they are because of insurance. Hospitals started making up fake, artificially high prices because insurance companies wanted a discount for referring patients to their hospital.

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0 points

I’ve heard many a tale of contacting the billing department and telling them you don’t have insurance and either they can get what money they actually need or none of it. They end up getting a much smaller bill.

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2 points

I’m not in the US, but one of the issues I have with medical insurance is that, say you need medication, the doctor will provide you with a prescription, requiring a specific brand due to the efficacy compared to other brands. The insurance providers would reject claims for the prescribed brand, and suggest an inferior brand that doctors warned to avoid.

This happened to my older folks, and is baffling why insurances feel the need to override a doctor’s recommendations.

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2 points

They were the same drug. The generic version is made after the original patent runs out and is an exact copy.

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1 point

Luckily, we don’t have that with medical insurance in Switzerland, but car mechanics sure are that way.

Need a fix on insurance? Ooh, that’ll take us 2 weeks of full time work - minimum 5000 bucks. Call them and tell them it’s not insured? Ah, that’ll be 500 bucks.

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