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The Federal government doesn’t have the right to establish affordable health care. (Apparently the Founding Fathers and the Supreme Court only count when you agree with them.)

We don’t need healthcare reform because you can buy your own plan now. Sure it’s outrageously expensive, so? (Once again let’s note the unspoken correlation between wealth and true freedom.)

When I mentioned that I couldn’t change insurance companies now anyway because I’d most likely be denied coverage for my septum as a pre-existing condition, I was told that wasn’t relevant. (I guess because talking about things in abstractions is easier to defend your point even if your point is nonsense.)

Single payer is bad because there’s no incentive to save. (Yes, because what we have now is a system noted for its efficency and frugalness. As long as by frugalness you mean insurance companies take your money and then decide whether or not to provide you with any actual coverage.)

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Blue Cross/Blue Shield has been holding my surgery request forms since mid-July. I spoke with the patient advocate today and she said they’ve routinely been dealing with 2-3 month backlogs for approvals. But I guess they have to make sure that providing my coverage for a procedure my doctor has documented as necessary so it does not cut into the billions of dollars of profit they made last year, and they certainly shouldn’t be expected to hire more people to deny — I mean “review” cases.

Lest anyone thinks this is an aberration, my doctor’s office told me in June that BC/BS routinely rejects sinus surgery in the majority of the cases, and the doctor has to file an appeal and do a “one on one” with someone from the company, and then they get approved. There’s a pattern of stalling and knee jerk denial of claims.

Mind you, I’ve paid into this system for 14 years and have never needed any serious care before this.

I would have been better off putting that money under the mattress and paying out of pocket when I needed it. Of course then I would have been paying much higher prices because hospitals don’t charge insurance companies as much as they charge individuals.

So, in summary: I’m one of the fortunate ones who has health insurance, but can’t use it without their approval which they won’t give due to a combination of being unable to approve procedures in a timely manner despite billions of dollars in profits (maybe hire more people? I know, I know, crazy ideas), not to mention a pattern of “deny first.”

But i am supposed to believe that the system isn’t broken because I could opt to pay out of my own pocket (why do I have insurance again?) or switch to another insurance company that would cost me more and which would have denied me coverage over this issue anyway because it was a pre existing condition.

I really don’t understand the world any more. These are intelligent people, arguing that the system works despite all evidence to the contrary, and claiming that the USA has the best healthcare in the world, which might be true, but who can actually access it?

(And let me be clear that while my own experience has been with BC/BS, I doubt they are any different than the rest of them.)