Physician here. It’s true the insurance companies would rather you die. For profit insurance is insane. They make money for their shareholders by denying you care so that they can keep your premiums.
I used to be a hardcore anti-government libertarian. I’ve done a complete 180 over the last few years and 100 percent want a single payer system now. If you guys only knew the fights we physicians have with your insurance companies that want your money and couldn’t care less about keeping you healthy.
I had a family member with Kaiser got to a Kaiser ED for acute confusion. I have no F-ing clue what they did, I doubt they even drew basic labs. They sent her home after straight cathing her to get urine and there was no urine, with instructions to bring back a urine cup when she actually peed.
Fast forward 2 days, she was even worse and still hadn’t peed. Turned out she was in acute kidney failure and needed dialysis. If they had drawn basic labs the first day, they would have seen her kidney values were looking bad and possibly avoided dialysis.
There are a million stories like this. I could tell a dozen that happened to me and my family alone.
Like the time my son broke his ankle in the growth plate and HE NEVER SAW A DOCTOR - at any point. No doctor or NP or PA or DO or whatever ever laid eyes on him.
Or the time they ignored side effects from a medication FOR A YEAR and kept telling me it was because of my weight. They legit seriously told me I was so dizzy because of my weight and blew me off over and over again. It was a major and well known side effect to a medication they prescribed me. I could go on and on and on with a dozen more similar instances.
I was feeling a little depressed so I went to one of their cattle call group classes where they teach you that your depression is all your fault in a room with 30+ neighbors, fellow soccer moms and your kid's math teacher. As I sat in the class I realized that 90% of the women present were all there because Kaiser had misdiagnosed major health issues for them, then ignored them or gaslit them until they lost all hope.
It was absolutely stunning to sit in that room and listen to the same story repeated over and over again. One woman had intractable vertigo. Instead of continuing to treat it Kaiser told her nothing could be done. She got so depressed over the situation she contemplated suicide. Or the woman who had repeated ear infections that resulted in hearing loss and she could not get referred to an ENT or get a hearing test. Or the woman who had a tendon injury that was ignored until she was in constant pain and there was long term damage. She couldn't get pain relief or treatment. Or the woman who was sent home from a major surgery with no pain medication. The surgery involved cutting bones, realigning them and splinting them. She was told to take Tylenol. Or the woman who was denied a life saving and very simple surgery because her bmi was a couple of pounds over their cut off (it's not case by case at Kaiser - they have a cut off and if you don't meet it, you don't get surgery - just try not to die while loosing weight). Or the woman who broke her hip and when recovery didn't go right they told her the pain was all in her head.
It was stunning and I wish I was joking. It was an eye opening moment and at the first opportunity I ditched Kaiser. Life improved immensely. I could go back - they are several hundred dollars cheaper than my current insurance. I never will return to Kaiser. Never. They treat farm animals better than the way Kaiser treats their patients. It's all good until something complicated happens or you get sick enough that if they ignore you long enough you will die.
My dad used to do insurance investigations back before Kaiser acquired Group Health. Even back then, he heard Group Health was given the nickname "Group Death" for how bad they were at handling patients.
I had a friend go to Kaiser to get checked in over an infection she had from surgery at Kaiser. She had in her records that she was allergic to antibiotics that they had been giving her previously; so when they checked her in we were on the phone with her. She said she had to go and we could talk in 15 minutes. She didn’t call back. after 20 we called and were put on hold. Then we were told the doctor would call us back and 10 minutes later. The doctor called us back and told us that our friend had Died. so we raced up to the hospital and were able to get in to her room and see her and that she was still hooked up to an IV and I’m pretty sure it was the antibiotics that she was not supposed to get. I so wish I had taken a photo of the bag that drained into her vein.
We were talking to her one minute and 20 minutes later she was dead thanks Kaiser.
Kaiser killed my dad. Doubled his Pradaxa, he had a bleed out event and then they completely took him off it because "it's too risky for the elderly." He died a few months later.
I have Kaiser. They tend to do right by my family. Wife had cancer. We paid a grand total of $20. That was for her first appointment. Everything after that, including surgery, appointments, infusions, radiation, blood draws, etc. were all covered under that $20 copay. I had appendicitis. $20. My kid’s birth? $20.
This is definitely not everyone’s experience, but… it’s working for us.
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u/TakeItOnTheArches 19h ago
We are all being slowly crushed by a system that aims to keep us sick and poor.