Cassanne wrote:Wait... in America an insurance company can drop you for getting sick?? Why the hell does anyone pay them anything then?
Where I live (Netherlands) i's mandatory to have health insurance, the insurance is not tied to your job. It gets more and more expensive though, due to recent implementation of the lovely 'free market'.
It's not perfect, but at least they have to accept everyone and can't drop you. And no need to avoid doctors or medicines when you need them.
Other than that, we have similar problems to what Darkintruder wrote about Canada.
There are the many instances of medical malpractice & Class action lawsuits as stipulated earlier but even if those are removed there are still ways for you to be dropped by one's insurance for being sick. However, that can be quite a pain in the ol' tookus so they do the next best thing - they wait you out.
Por ejemplo: You need a liver transplant. You've been out of work for the most part on sick leave. You need the transplant to survive. The bean counters @ the insurance company do a Cost-Benefit Analysis and determine that with the total cost of surgery, recovery & interest accumulated on the payment back will be too much for you to pay within your lifetime. Thus, they just say "We will not approve this operation, due to potential medical concerns." You can appeal and say, "I know you're more concerned about the money and I need this transplant. You need to pay for it." They'll give you the runaround and figure (most of the time correctly) that they can tie the appeals up in red tape. By the time it comes up and they are forced to approve it, you're either too sick for surgery or already dead & thusly no longer needing said transplant.
It happens more often than you think.
Now in regards to your question of "Why do we pay them anything in the first place?" For most places, it's mandatory. The government doesn't want to be left holding the check for the people's ills. It (in it's current iteration) doesn't think that health care is within the purview of the Federal government. It should be left in the hands of the states & commercial HMO's. This is why there are many different solutions that vary from state to state for those without, leaving massive cracks for them to fall through & legistlation that try to remove the governments from liability in anything & everything...brought up thanks to the litigious nature of America as posted earlier. You have a previous condition, you're too much of a liability & thus non-insureable. It's in the same vein as doing credit checks: Gotta have credit. People mess up on the credit cards. Don't pay them off fast enough. Credit goes bad. They have to pay more for homes & have higher interest rates when borrowing cash from banks for said large purchases. It's like the system, in all it's facets, is geared to make Americans falter. Once they falter, it's like quicksand and doesn't let up until you're so far into the clutches that you can't get away.
