I've had them at various times, and they always pulled that crap. It superficially looks like sloppy incompetence, but it always goes in their favor. In the computer age, how could you possibly process a claim as if I am in lower tier coverage, when I am in the higher tier coverage? Luckily, where I work now, I had a choice. So I dropped them and went with more expensive insurance offered by a union. More expensive on paper, but you know what? They actually pay claims, exactly as they are supposed to, every time. So there is no more wasted time on the phone, writing angry letters and filling out forms. I get that time back, and it's worth every penny.

If more people just had choices, like I do, it would be an improvement. Before we try single payer, I'd like to see a system where we buy our health insurance the way we buy car insurance, with some ground rules of course. They have to cover preexisting conditions, there is a minimum level of coverage that all plans must provide, and everyone has to carry it. Like the ACA exchanges, but for everyone. It's ridiculous that so many Americans are locked into a single insurance company because of where they work. For many, the status quo vs single payer argument is monopoly vs monopoly. Many workers are stuck in a local monopoly with their employer based coverage, and single payer will replace it with a national monopoly. So people think, "my current coverage is the devil I know. And I could always go work somewhere else, or convince my HR department to offer something else. But if we get single-payer and it sucks, what recourse do I have?"