4 ms·

This was a standard rebuttal at the time. It was obvious then (as it is now) that insurance companies were playing the same roll as the supposed death panels. B

This was a standard rebuttal at the time. It was obvious then (as it is now) that insurance companies were playing the same roll as the supposed death panels. But the voices saying “government death panels” were just louder than the rebuttals which wasn’t that surprising since it was repeated ad nauseum by a certain political party as well as the largest news organization in the country.

pyuser583 3y ago
Death panel is kind of a vague phrase. My recollection is something about in the UK where they won’t spend a million pounds to do a 90 year old can live to 90.001. If that’s the case, insurance companies are not death panels. They don’t make determinations about the value of life. They refuse to cover ineffective treatments, but they don’t make evaluations based on age or quality of life. The fact that something like 80% of health care spending occurs in the last six months of life was something being talked about. Still is. “Death panel” is an inflammatory word, and nobody is going to acknowledge running one. But I really don’t see how insurance companies can pushed into the definition.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  Some insurance companies are a bit worse than death panels. https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health... > Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said. <rubber stamping computer algorithm's initial approval or denials> https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-appeal-insurance-denials-too-complicated https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-appeal-insurance-d... > It’s especially complicated in oncology, said Dr. Barbara McAneny, a former president of the American Medical Association who runs a 6,000-patient oncology practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. > McAneny told me she spends $350,000 a year on a designated team of denial fighters whose sole job is to request prior authorization for cancer care — an average 67 requests per day — and then appeal the denials. > For starters, she said bluntly, “we know everything is going to get denied.” It’s almost a given, she said, that the insurer will lose the first batch of records. “We often have to send records two or three times before they finally admit they actually received them. … They play all of these kinds of delaying games.” > Her theory is that insurance companies save money by delaying spending as long as possible, especially if the patient or the doctor gives up on the appeal, or the patient’s condition rapidly declines in the absence of treatment. > For an insurance company, she said, “you know, death is cheaper than chemotherapy.”

pyuser583 3y ago

Death panel is kind of a vague phrase. My recollection is something about in the UK where they won’t spend a million pounds to do a 90 year old can live to 90.001. If that’s the case, insurance companies are not death panels. They don’t make determinations about the value of life. They refuse to cover ineffective treatments, but they don’t make evaluations based on age or quality of life. The fact that something like 80% of health care spending occurs in the last six months of life was something being talked about. Still is. “Death panel” is an inflammatory word, and nobody is going to acknowledge running one. But I really don’t see how insurance companies can pushed into the definition.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
Some insurance companies are a bit worse than death panels. https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health... > Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said. <rubber stamping computer algorithm's initial approval or denials> https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-appeal-insurance-denials-too-complicated https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-appeal-insurance-d... > It’s especially complicated in oncology, said Dr. Barbara McAneny, a former president of the American Medical Association who runs a 6,000-patient oncology practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. > McAneny told me she spends $350,000 a year on a designated team of denial fighters whose sole job is to request prior authorization for cancer care — an average 67 requests per day — and then appeal the denials. > For starters, she said bluntly, “we know everything is going to get denied.” It’s almost a given, she said, that the insurer will lose the first batch of records. “We often have to send records two or three times before they finally admit they actually received them. … They play all of these kinds of delaying games.” > Her theory is that insurance companies save money by delaying spending as long as possible, especially if the patient or the doctor gives up on the appeal, or the patient’s condition rapidly declines in the absence of treatment. > For an insurance company, she said, “you know, death is cheaper than chemotherapy.”