Last week, The Lever’s Matthew Cunningham-Cook reported on how the private-equity backed health insurer Friday Health Plans imploded amid Wall Street greed, corporate health care consolidation, and lax government oversight.
The collapse left 30,000 Colorado policyholders, and many more in other states, scrambling to find new coverage and wiping out nearly all payments they had made towards their annual deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. And Friday’s breakdown is just one example among several.
When we report on developments like this, we try to put a human face on the cost of corporate and government malfeasance. In this case, we had the perfect story to illustrate the dangers of Wall Street getting into health insurance — but for journalistic reasons, we couldn’t include it.
That story was my own.
I am lucky that I am relatively healthy and, outside of my yearly checkup, incur few medical costs. I have been penalized over $2000 over the past decade because I signed up late for medicare prescription drug coverage back in 2013. I recall the nightmare we went thru when my son fell and damaged his elbow many years ago. It was a constant struggle to get them to pay for anything. It was so easy for the paper pusher or agent on the phone to find some reason to deny or dodge my questions. For profit health care - profits before people. That's America. Sadly.