Comment by Centigonal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Centigonal | Hacker News Reader

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Situations like this are infuriating to me. Our healthcare system needs to have some kind of provision for "this patient needs to be on treatment X probably for life. They are authorized for this treatment and subsequent claims will be approved unless there is a qualifying event (e.g. a recall, condition changes, patient and their doctor switch treatment, etc)."

I have UC that's well-controlled with mesalamine, and I've had a few scares (my insurance rolls out a new prior auth every year, and I have to call my provider to have them sign it for some reason, or the new insurance only covers the name brand (not generics) because of PBM antics). The thought of having to come off of mesalamine for even a week is terrifying. I really feel for you because your condition seems much more severe/hard to control.

Why do I need a new prior auth every year? My medication hasn't changed, and neither has my condition. It's a bureaucratic hoop, and if I don't jump through it I get to spend my whole day on top of a toilet. That's a terrible way to treat a human being.

Even from a purely amoral capitalist perspective, I know the cost of my medication is a small fraction of the dollar value that doesn't get generated if I can't take it. I don't benefit and society doesn't benefit if I'm sick - the only group who benefits is the insurance company who gets to pocket my premiums and avoid paying out. It makes me furious.

Here's a simple solution. Insurance HAS to pay if a doctor recommends it. This is what premiums are for. If insurance cannot pay, they can go out of business.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." - H. L. Mencken

Even a moment's thought about the power disparity between an insurer and an individual facing medical problems leads me to conclude your "simple solution" has little to recommend it.

I have no idea what you're trying to say.

I don't love insurance companies and I don't love the profit incentive they have.

If a patient breaks a leg and a doctor recommends not experiencing gravity for a while, do we fly them to space?

I am using hyperbole to demonstrate a point: there are meaningful economic limits that must be created by some entity and enforced.

What is the value of a human life? The GDP of a nation is a hard upper limit. The total money a particular person in question has access to is the lower limit.

If you run an insurance company (or you run government run healthcare) you can't avoid answering that question with an actual real dollar amount.

At some point spending money on a person with a particular condition does mean that someone else with a different condition can't have money spent on them.

That's why it's better to have everyone covered under insurance, so that the risk pool is larger, and the cost to the individual is lower.

That's why it's important to spend money on research; to develop new technologies and techniques, and improve existing technologies and techniques; that can make cost of care lower.

That's why it's important to have standards of care and treatment, for all medical providers to follow.

Cry me a river when paying claims keeps insurers from turning a profit. They brought all the contempt heaped on them upon themselves.

I get your example is hyperbole, but just for fun: the space flight would be recognized as an experimental treatment since it’s known not to be a routine/established procedure. Expenses would be covered if a legitimate clinical trial of space flights were being conducted. Otherwise, costs would be out of pocket unless a special approval were granted. If space flight were being seriously studied for an extremely rare disease, it would likely be paid for by the research institution.

You aren't wrong, per se, but until the incitive for the insurance company stops being "maximize profit", they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about how health care dollars are allocated.

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