[Athens]

B.C. baby costs Aussie couple $1M - British Columbia - CBC News

This is a great article on how sneaky private insurance can be. In short this Australian couple ended up given birth to a premature baby here in BC at a cost of a Million dollars. They had coverage for unexpected medical issues including pregnancy related ones "EXCEPT" birth....

My issue with what I can gather from the article that this exception seems brutally unfair when premature birth in itself is a pregnancy related medical condition.

Its these little things like this in insurance coverage that screws people horribly. This poor couple is not stuck paying BC Childrens hospital $300 a month for the rest of there lives which is wrong. The insurance company itself dodged a bullet on this because had the birth happened in Australia they would have been paying it.

Very thankful the incident happened at the Airport and not over the ocean where the baby would have mostly certainly died. They lucked out there that they where in a position for care. But its stories like this that irk me about Insurance companies, this little "Exceptions"

[turtle777]

I'm just glad this happened in low-health-care-cost Canadia.

In the USSA, this would have cost eleventy billion.

-t

[Athens]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I'm just glad this happened in low-health-care-cost Canadia.

In the USSA, this would have cost eleventy billion.

-t

Well that and BC Children's Hospital negotiated a rate that was fair for repayments, knowing full well it would never come close to the 1 million cost. AT a 100 years of payments it would be about a 3rd of the bill. I've been reading comments on Australian sites and some people are pretty pissed at the idea of the Australian tax payer paying this bill.

This is the part I liked

Evans and her husband paid $10,000 to BC Children's and Women's Hospital on a credit card as a gesture of goodwill and the hospital has agreed to absorb part of the cost.

The couple have since reached a personal financing agreement with the hospital to pay $300 per month for the rest of their lives, but based on the figures they've been given, it would take them more than 200 years to pay their bill at that rate.

That the couple is actually making the payments they agreed to and that Children's hospital worked out a rate that was reasonable even though it would be absorbing a big part of the cost.

What is annoying is the Insurance companies and how they get away with this crap.

[mduell]

If your concern is about pregnancy it's hard to believe you'd sign away on a policy that excludes an incredibly common component of pregnancy. Read the policy next time before you buy?

[Waragainstsleep]

If we read every policy and contract before we bought it, no-one would have enough time to earn the money to buy whatever the contract was for in the first place. Its especially despicable in the case of insurance since they throw in pages and pages of pointless legalese when all that is required is two lists: 'Covered' and 'Not Covered'.

So I guess that insurance companies and lawyers between them must be responsible for a huge percentage of the cost of modern healthcare. I propose a new pricing plan:

For an unspecified example procedure:

Private citizen with no insurance: $100
Private citizen with insurance: $10000
Medical insurance company employee: $1000000
Medical insurance owner/shareholder: $10000000
Lawyer: $100000
Medical malpractice Lawyer: $10000000
Medical insurance company lawyer: $Infinity Billion

[Big Mac]

Insurance is a necessary evil in a world fraught with hazards and perils of all types and varieties. When it comes to all types of insurance, Caveat emptor prevails. They're complicated products (often made much more complicated and costly due to government regulations, although well intentioned I'm sure), which are sold by independent agents (some scrupulous, some not so) or sometimes now entirely online. The buyer has to understand at least the major provisions of the policy being purchased.

[The Final Shortcut]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Insurance is a necessary evil in a world fraught with hazards and perils of all types and varieties. When it comes to all types of insurance, Caveat emptor prevails. They're complicated products (often made much more complicated and costly due to government regulations, although well intentioned I'm sure), which are sold by independent agents (some scrupulous, some not so) or sometimes now entirely online. The buyer has to understand at least the major provisions of the policy being purchased.

Sophisticated people so rarely completely understand common major documents they sign - terms of a lease, mortgage, house insurance car purchase, you name it. Even more so for the unsophisticated purchaser, and even more so when something is being sold to you by someone who benefits by glossing over the parts of the document that aren't favourable to the consumer. At the end of the day, these kind of stories mean that one side is vindicated by further adding reps and warranties, and the other side pretty much needs to get a lawyer if they want to fully identify and understand all the exceptions to their purchaser - at a significant cost of course.

It's my business to understand these things, and yet the last time I got house insurance it took me forever to track down what exactly I was getting.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Insurance is a necessary evil in a world fraught with hazards and perils of all types and varieties. When it comes to all types of insurance, Caveat emptor prevails. They're complicated products (often made much more complicated and costly due to government regulations, although well intentioned I'm sure), which are sold by independent agents (some scrupulous, some not so) or sometimes now entirely online. The buyer has to understand at least the major provisions of the policy being purchased.

I wonder how much more complicated it would be with out government regulations. I'm sure they would find a excuse not to pay 99 out of 100 times.

[Uncle Skeleton]

I thought you weren't supposed to fly when you're that pregnant?

[Athens]

I wouldn't want my wife flying at 6+ months but there doctor did clear them for travel.