Over 50 Reasons Health Insurers May Reject You
Or, better titled: Why You Should Be Glad You Have Group Health Insurance, and Why Private Health Insurance Has Become A Joke
Or, even better: You May Be Denied Health Insurance At Any Cost If You’ve Had Zits or Heartburn (No, Seriously)
I’m compiling two stories about California HMOs from LA Times’s Lisa Girion, who reports on medical conditions that can make you uninsurable, common drugs you take that can make you uninsurable, and jobs you have that can make you uninsurable. Uninsurable = no matter how much you’re willing to pay them, they won’t agree to provide health insurance for you. (This applies to individuals trying to get health coverage–generally larger groups can bargain together to get insurance, but if you’re by yourself, good luck.)
(Talk about stacking the decks.) If private insurers get to setup the playing field this way, can I request that my professional sports team play only against high school students? I’d also like to make sure that the people playing poker with me only get crappy cards. Thanks.
Odds are that you or someone in your immediate family has at least one of these. I can check off several of these drugs, and at least two of the illnesses.
Medical illnesses:
- AIDS
- allergies
- arthritis
- asthma
- attention deficit disorder
- autism
- bed-wetting
- breast implants
- cancer
- cerebral palsy
- chronic bronchitis
- chronic fatigue syndrome
- chronic sinusitis
- cirrhosis
- cystitis
- diabetes
- ear infections
- epilepsy
- gender reassignment
- heart disease
- hemochromatosis
- hepatitis
- herpes
- high blood pressure
- impotence
- infertility
- irritable bowel syndrome
- joint sprain
- kidney infections
- lupus
- mild depression
- muscular dystrophy
- migraines
- miscarriage
- pregnancy
- “expectant fatherhood,” planned adoption
- psoriasis
- recurrent tonsillitis
- renal failure
- ringworm
- severe mental disorders
- sleep apnea
- stroke
- ulcers
- varicose veins
Drugs (and illnesses they treat):
- Accutane (acne)
- Allegra (allergies)
- Celebrex (arthritis)
- Celexa (depression)
- Concerta (attention deficit)
- Famvir (herpes)
- Imdur (angina)
- Imitrex (headaches, migraines)
- Lamisil (fungal infections)
- Parolodel (menstrual disorders)
- Prozac (depression)
- Ritalin (attention deficit)
- Tagamet (heartburn, ulcers)
- Tapazole (hyperthyroid)
- Topamax (epilepsy, migraines)
Jobs:
- Air traffic control
- Building, moving
- Chemical/rubber manufacturing
- Circus or carnival work
- Concrete or asphalt work
- Crop dusting
- Firefighting
- Furniture and fixtures manufacturing
- Lumber work, including wood chopping, timber cutting and working in a sawmill
- Migrant labor
- Oil well or refinery work
- Police work
- Roofing
- Sandblasting
- Sports, semi-pro or professional
- Stockyard work, with or without butchering
- Stables, all employees
- Stunt work
- Telecom installation
- Transportation and aviation
- Tree climbing
- Tunnel work
- War reporting
- Window work at heights exceeding three stories
Just came to your site from KevinMD.com/blog and I’m impressed. I’ll be sure to add it to my google reader.
About this post, do you think this is more of a product of the state of gov’t/medicine in California than anything? Honestly, if I was insuring people in California w/ all of its problems, I’d only want the healthy ones too.
Oh, I think it’s the state of healthcare, insurance, and medicine in the country, not just California.
I’ve heard of patients paying cash and giving incorrect identifying information just so their medical/mental health conditions and treatments don’t go on their medical record.
This type of system is setting us up for disaster.
you know why insurance rejects certain candidates. they can’t afford the fees that hospitals charge. the insurance game is much more a free market than the medical racket. why is healthcare so damn expensive? why do doctors charge so much? especially when they make so many errors.
Woah! Just when I was referring to your post in my blog and saying what a sad state our health system is in…
Schwarzenegger calls for universal health coverage
Hell yes!!
Back in the mid 1990s, a psychiatrist told me that he had some clients who paid cash so that there was no paper trail they’d used his services. At the time I thought that was kind of weird. Now I know better.
I’m an independent contractor. I applied to Blue Cross HMO. I hope I can state the provider’s name because they denied me of being overweight for my size (i.e., 139 and 5′ tall). This leads to my need of high blood pressure pills. I either pay more than $200/mo for prescriptions and no coverage or $75 and a copay of $10 for prescriptions and coverage. I don’t see my doctor often. So my healthcare coverage is mostly for low $$ for prescription drugs. There seems to be a correlation of not seeing the doctor and using healthcare for low copay prescriptions… eh?
BTW – Since then I have lost 10 lbs. and walking to get my blood pressure down.
… and we wonder: where did this world go wrong???
In the country where we boast that discrimination is a sin we manage to take the healthcare away from those who need it THE MOST…
We just discussed this on the celiac listserv. Apparently some celiacs are being denied health insurance because of this autoimmune disease. (Celiac is when your immune system targets ingested gluten in your small intestine.)
Avoiding gluten will keep the autoimmune response from any damage. And most of us feel so terrible that we WANT to avoid gluten at all costs (believe me the cost is ridiculous for some gluten free foods). I’m scared this will be an issue in trying to get coverage for my new job.
dabywn
The country needs to have guaranteed-issue health insurance rather than the take-businesses-off-the-hook and make-it-easier-for-insurance-companies-to-cancel-people policies of the Bush administration.
Wake up America. Instead of spending billions of dollars blowing apart the middle east maybe we should provide universal, affordable coverage to all Americans.