Insurance Company Gets Fucked Over By Another Cancer Patient

[Hissyspit]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/insurance-company-gets-fucked-over-by-another-canc,33101

Insurance Company Gets Fucked Over By Another Cancer Patient

NEWS • Health • Healthcare • News • Business • ISSUE 49•28 • Jul 12, 2013

CHICAGO—Frustrated executives from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association announced Friday that they are getting “completely fucked over” by Allentown, PA resident Matthew Greison, a 57-year-old man suffering from an advanced form of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Stressing that this is not the first issue they have had with such patients, company sources expressed their outrage to reporters over Greison's “totally unfair” comprehensive health care benefits and claimed the skyrocketing costs of his cancer treatment have gotten out of hand.

“We got the first bill and just couldn’t believe how expensive it was,” said Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO Scott Serota, adding that at first, he thought the invoice was a mistake. “Every visit to the oncologist ran about $140, not to mention the thousands of dollars for every MRI and CT scan, and then the chemotherapy and cancer drugs were more than $10,000 per month. And he paid for maybe—maybe—5 percent of it. The rest was dumped on us.”

“It’s absolute fucking bullshit,” Serota continued. “I can’t believe they’re just allowed to get away with that.”

According to reports, Blue Cross Blue Shield’s expenses have only gotten more unreasonable since Greison was first diagnosed with the life-threatening disease this past March. After an initially successful chemotherapy treatment, the health insurance company was reportedly informed that the cancer was no longer in remission and was forced to pay over $125,000 for a further two weeks of inpatient care in a hospital.

Sources confirmed that such headaches for insurance companies are unfortunately incredibly common when dealing with any cancer patient.

“These assholes are just bleeding us dry here,” said Serota. “We try to talk to them about it, to beg them to just sympathize with our situation, but they just kept bringing up bullshit excuses about deductibles and coinsurance payments and citing all these stupid small-print details about coverage eligibility. All they try to do is get out of paying for anything.”

“Trust me, dealing with these people is a total nightmare,” Serota added.

MORE[p]

[SheilaT]

1. Gosh.

Just imagine what it would be like if the patients were the ones . . . wait, it will come to me in a moment.

I know it's The Onion, but it's among the best arguments for a single payer system I've ever seen.

[snot]

2. So long as they could exclude certain insureds and, esp. for life-or-death services, pass the costs

. . . re- the rest along to premium payers, insurers had no incentive to pressure providers to charge reasonable prices for their services. So providers haven't charged reasonable prices for their services.

And that's the BEST case scenario re- what's been going on. I'd bet some insurers have actually received kick-backs from providers out of the excessive fees charged.

[bluedeathray]

3. HAHA You have to love the Onion. nt

[DissidentVoice]

4. There is going to have to be a revolution in health care

Seriously put, all we are going to get from Washington is tinkering at the margins.

Yes, the ACA is worlds better than anything we would have got (meaning: Nothing!) from the GOP. However, it leaves the existing stable-as-quicksand foundation of private insurers in place. Much better would have been to expand Medicare for ALL Americans.

It's going to take people just getting fed up with paying extortionate insurance premiums, drug costs, etc. and STOP doing it.

The quicksand will collapse, as it should have long ago...and something entirely new can/should be built in its place.

[chknltl]

5. Congress could spring to the aid of the fucked over insurance company.

Maybe find a way to subsidize these struggling insurance companies. They could also fast track legislation which 'forces' those insurance companies to decide on their own who really needs medical help and what kind of help would be best!

(Big sigh.....there's never a good DROOLING CEO smiley around when you need one, i guess I'll have to turn to our overworked thingy in order to disappoint lurking freepers who may have thought I was serious).

[merrily]

6. Great headline.

[malaise]

7. Brilliant

Go Onion!!!

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

8. I'd say this is not much different from their internal memos. nt

[Hissyspit]

10. +1

[lame54]

9. In other news - Dog runs over car

[onethatcares]

11. The "Onion" where fiction matches the truth

almost.

With this story I can picture the suits doing late night brainstorming of ways to screw the guy out of his care.

Which probably goes on a lot more than we can imagine.

[Brigid]

12. Now this is pure satirical gold.

Outstanding even by "Onion" standards.