Cory DoctorowHaving spent thousands of dollars on Cobra, only to have Kaiser terminate my account without notice or warning, and back-date the termination to December, I called Kaiser. It took 54 minutes to speak to someone, who could not resolve this issue. I have been waiting to speak to someone who may be able to resolve my issue for 71 minutes now.
Darren@pluralistic Kaiser billing support is the ninth circle of hell. And the entire time they tell you to go to their website which won’t actually do anything. They are quite nice in person and confident if you walk in and having talked with a few, Wednesday 5 PM PST is best time to get fast customer support oddly. I spent a few hours tracking down an unpaid bill, even though I was paying my monthly premium. Eventually found it was an obscure optometry charge. I paid it and three months later they refunded it because they had billed me in error.
MidgePhoto@dplattsf @pluralistic
Odd place, America.
You really should have a health care system.
It seems it would liberate a great number of working hours, some of them clever, for other activity.
There are other benefits, but only everyone else thinks them important.
Odd place, America.
You really should have a health care system.
It seems it would liberate a great number of working hours, some of them clever, for other activity.
There are other benefits, but only everyone else thinks them important.
@Photo55 @pluralistic I won't defend the US system for a moment, but I also think that a lot of the discussion around healthcare is pretty naive and focused poorly. Whether employer pays, or Government the customer Is completely insulated from the real price of providing the product. That means the providers get away with incredible inefficiencies and there is no real accountability. Voters scream if you try to ration anything. I'm in the odd position of actually paying directly and it's both expensive, and customer service (not for the care itself but things like billing) are worse than any other type of product. I wonder if something like health savings accounts would incentivize better behavior by providers if they had to actually compete on quality and price because the underlying cost of providing healthcare is out of control and product cost is invisible.
@dplattsf @pluralistic
Employer paying is an abuse coming close to slavery.
Which may be why it has trailed on in the USA.
Patients here are not completely insulated from the cost, apart from it being raised from general taxation, and published, it is discussed.
@Photo55 @pluralistic what does it cost to provide health care for a typical family? Employers aren't sympathetic figures either but can tell you it's no fun having an employee cost that goes up 10% per year. It's not sustainable.
@dplattsf @pluralistic
Ridiculous to make health contingent on employment.
And as you note, it isn't good business either.
Ridiculous to make health contingent on employment.
And as you note, it isn't good business either.
Hoggrim 🐗The free market is the worst possible way to incentivize rational pricing. when you need health care you need it. being told to shop around to people who know they can charge whatever they want because it can be life or death just leaves all bad options unless someone is being altruistic and those will be kneecapped by the other players for hurting profit. The whole idea of a healthcare market is a failure to understand how markets work. ( unless you're the aforementioned profiteers )
@pluralistic @Hoggrim @Photo55 respectfully disagree but understand your point of view. There’s no real market right now. Mostly binary outcome. One of my kaiser doctors one day memorably said „never has so much money been spent on so few, so healthy people“, as he charged my employer probably a fortune for a one minute procedure.