health insurers have a license to steal….and you can’t sue them
by problembear
private health insurers have had it pretty cushy in this country. they can pretty much do whatever they want to you; deny coverage, drop you from their insurance on a whim, deny payments for procedures, disapprove, obfuscate and delay treatment which your doctor ordered and you can’t sue them for punitive damages thanks to this law.
harvard school of law chimes in with this assessment of the fairness of ERISA-
Almost no one disputes the fact that the system of liability for managed care organizations, as established by ERISA, is seriously flawed. However, there is little agreement as to what should be done to remedy the situation.
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August 12, 2009 at 12:02 am
Health benefits have no business being regulated by the “Employee Retirement Income Security Act.” The express purpose of the original legislation was to prevent companies from pulling the rug out on those who had contributed to ESOPs, 401ks, etc…
August 12, 2009 at 12:14 am
My health care plan is probably the most popular one in America today… I plan on not getting sick until I qualify for Medicare.
August 12, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I am curious Problem Bear, since you raise the issue of being sued what is your opinion on Tort reform as it relates to health care?
Does the proposed health care legislation address this issue? Obama and Congress can find huge economic savings to pay for their proposed legislation by drastically reducing the increased costs of health care caused by lawsuits. Should we limit the amount of awards plaintiff attorneys receive? Should we place caps on awards?
Can we really control the costs of health care and make it affordable without Tort reform?
There is an endless list of questions to ask.
August 12, 2009 at 9:35 pm
i haven’t looked into enough of the entire health related tort reform issues to provide any intelligent opinion pogo….but i will say that my partial libertarian side leans to allowing citizenry access to redress through the legal system, no matter what. i find that rather than costing more money, stiff jury verdicts tend to correct problems and protect us which i think saves money in the long run.
that line of reasoning is why i find it appalling that employer provided health insurers can get away with no punitive damages under this obscure and badly written law.
maybe if health care insurers had been subject to civil tort claims all along, we wouldn’t be facing this mess. but since we are, i see no other solution at this time except reform to curb the worst abuses of these companies. everyone knows that when one company gets away with something and turns huge profits, they all must do it, or face extinction- just the opposite of what competition should have been doing. we are rewarding the biggest assholes out there for their bad behavior. just like the banks. i believe in burning out the field to get rid of the weeds.
so philosophically yes. i think you should always be able to sue someone or some company who injures you in anyway.
we need to protect that individual’s right to pursue justice in a court of law. right now, these parasites are untouchable unless you want to collect just what they would have payed you if they hadn’t tried to rip you off to begin with and your lawyer’s costs. not much reward for a lot of work in federal court. it effectively stops your right for redress for injury because no attorney in his right mind would touch a case like that.