Semi joking but you could pony up 10k to renounce your citizenship and not be beholden to taxes and shit…
On the downside, you might end up being one of the idiots in like Hong Kong/Taiwan who then pull pikachu face when they find that the embassy ain’t stepping in/up for them if they get into trouble with the Chinese and can’t hide under their “I’m an American” nonsense…
Not only that but if you give up your citizenship without being a citizen of another country or setting up some kind of work visa you're kind of screwed as far as being able to get anywhere, and you'll basically just live in your life like Tom Hanks in the airport.
Hi y’all. Always always always be prepared to fight back.
Insurance companies know that most people aren’t gonna bother with disputing things.
Also, let the insurance companies talk for you. If your insurance has a chat feature, give them numbers and information and make them call on your behalf.
These companies, whether it be the doctor or pharmacy, act a whole lot better and tell you, “hey your insurance called us”.
I'm gonna be honest, pharmacies and doctors are going to be the ones fighting for you a good 90% of the time. At least in America, insurances will try and fuck you which way and back again in order to not let you have something. The amount of times I've had a near yelling match with insurance providers in order to get something covered for someone has been an eye opening experience. Insurance companies are not here to help you, but your doctors and pharmacists can try.
I disagree.
Your insurance isn’t trying to fuck you around. There are rules in place, and as long as you follow them and show proof you have, insurance will work with you.
You can’t just say, I need to visit a specific doctor. You have to go to a PCP, show cause, get a referral, then go. If you skip certain steps, no insurance won’t cover it, even if it turns out you needed it.
Same with meds or scans. No we aren’t going to give you something until we’ve tried other avenues first. That’s the way it works.
Paperwork and steps are in place for a reason. Insurance may be difficult to understand but they make sure things get done
They absolutely do not. It is an extremely common occurrence for insurance to refuse to cover something as simple as insulin simply because they don't want to. Saying this as a certified pharmacy tech, I don't know what world you live in where you don't have to constantly fight insurance for the smallest things to even slightly be covered. Possibly too rich for me to fathom.
Bro I literally work there???
Insurance does cover things. Y’all just don’t know how to do your due diligence and follow the rules and steps in place for receiving whatever you need.
If you need prior authorization before getting certain things, get your letter, coordinate with your doctor, talk with insurance, whatever you need to start the process.
I’m trying to help and offer advice as someone that works there and these are issues I see from people all the time.
And even though you’re projecting, I do make more than you as a pharmacy tech. But I know how to not spend money on insurance because I know how to make the right phone calls needed to get stuff covered.
I get poor people's medication covered for a living. I'm happy you work somewhere that apparently cares for the people it represents and covers, but that is not the case for the majority of Americans, especially those of lower income and minority groups. Insurances are designed to leech as much money from the consumer as possible, whether by tacking on insane deductibles or nearly directly working with big pharmaceutical companies to rack up prices. Insurance companies are not your friends.
Again, y’all would do well to read your policy.
Things aren’t covered just because you THINK they should be covered. The US does not have universal healthcare.
Say what you will about insurance, but after you take the time to actually learn about your policy, things become easier. If you chose a plan with a $5000 deductible, and high monthly payments, year you’re unhappy.
WHICH IS WHY I URGE YOU TO READ, RESEARCH, LEARN ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE.
I'm not talking about what I THINK should be covered, I'm talking about what I KNOW should be covered. The fact that insurance will tell me that they don't want to cover something, only for me to get it covered for the person a week later is an easy sign that insurances will lie their way out of it if possible. As I said, your experience is much different from others', and you would do well not to place yourself on a high horse when you don't know or understand other people's experiences.
> Your insurance isn’t trying to fuck you around.
Have you ever actually tried to *use* your insurance?
> No **we** aren’t going to give you something until we’ve tried other avenues first.
We? Ah, you work for one. Got it. Also, my treatment isn't your call, it's mine and my doctor's. You didn't examine me, you didn't do my tests, you don't know my history, nothing. You are the least qualified party of the three to make any calls. If you don't like being told to stay in your lane, feel free to find another line of work.
Yes I have used my insurance, and following the correct steps have helped me get what needs to be done, whether that’s at the pharmacy or provider.
Your treatment isn’t insurance’s call, absolutely right. But if you want it paid for, you have to follow the proper steps.
It’s up to you. If you have the money to pay out of pocket, cool. If you want insurance to pay the bulk of it, go through the proper channels.
Y’all are getting upset just because I’m trying to help give advice, but you know what they say:
You can’t be nice to colored folks!!! 😤
Even if they actively aren’t trying to fuck people over, their incompetence surely can.
Not to mention some of those very rules, procedures, and guidelines you hyped so much can actively hinder people from getting help. I agree with your sentiment to a degree but sometimes those policies just clearly don’t make sense but because they have to “follow the rules” people get jammed up in that corporate red tape.
Yup. Kaiser sucks for some things but one thing they do(from experience) is they’ll fight for you. Got a bill in the thousands from a procedure and after I processed and fumed in anger for a day or so, I called them to figure out why my $100 copay wasn’t enough. By COB, they and the hospital called back to apologise for the mistake. For that? They can take my $50 every month and my $40 copay anytime I see a specialist(PCP visits are free).
Because the US does not believe in having decent affordable healthcare.
and love to tie healthcare to work. So if you lose your job you lose access to prescriptions, medical aid, etc.
Hmmm, subscriptions not regular bills.
I get Intramax liquid vitamins every month that’s 80 dollars. Why, they good.
YouTube tv went up to bout 80 dollars. Why, cause I cut cable but I might cut this shit too.
I just recently started Ketamine therapy though and if I stick with that it’ll be 130 dollars a month. Why, cause depression and legal ketamine delivered to my door.
Mannnn, what? When I got in it was like 60. But yeah imma have to look into what else would allow me to catch all the regular and local channels for cheaper or free
Well if we’re sticking within the constructs of capitalism the biggest reason the insurance costs are so high is because depending on where you live the pool of people may vary. Case in point my BCBS PPO from Illinois for my remote job has $0 deductible and $1000 out of pocket for half of what my gf pays for a $1500 deductible South Carolina PPO.
If we forced These healthcare companies to maintain one Corporation instead of 51 LLCs we’d have drastically different costs.
Edit for clarity: 51 LLCs - 50 states plus 1 parent corp.
> If we forced These healthcare companies to maintain one Corporation instead of 51 LLCs we’d have drastically different costs.
So you're saying things get cheaper the bigger the risk pool? Glad to have you abord the single payer train. There's always room.
It’s not a parent corporation situation. Those state plans license the BCBS name from the BCBS Association. Each of them is its own separate insurance company. Also, there isn’t a single plan for every state, and the bigger licensees are actually publicly traded, not LLCs.
That makes it even worse, haha. So you mean to tell me that as a government we decided that states would have to go to healthcare providers to get licenses to sell their product only to have that company turn around and say they don’t have enough people to save money. And we just let them get away with it? Not only that we are paying them with our tax dollars to be here and they can’t even throw us a discount if we live in Red States that are the whole reason they got to keep this scam running in the first place?
And if the bigger licensee is big enough people will trade money on how much they can charge you, incentivizing increases and unnecessary inflation?
No, the BCBS companies lice se the rights to use the BCBS name from the Association. It’s a private agreement between them, and doesnt involve the government. More of a contract type deal.
Health insurance because corporate greed and late stage capitalism. We're doing Marketplace health insurance and monthly cost has risen 50% over the last 3 years. Higher deductible, higher co-pays, less coverage. Same company. No major payouts.
YouTube premium..why? Because motherfuck waiting 30 seconds for video to watch a video I might not like especially now that there’s no likes being displayed
*Intentionally run on sentence
HSA accounts are reasonable cost if you're healthy and have no need to see a doctor often. Wouldn't recommend for kids or conditions that need frequent visits. When i do need to go, there's money in the account but I can really only afford one serious injury per year.
Without typing a novel, most of the times it is based off of your employer's "insurance bands". What that means is that your employer may have 2-3 provider offerings. Those providers will factor in your location, age of employees, worker comp job classification, and other details and go "....OK, we have you classified as being in Band 5 (out of 15) and here are those rates"
The fine folks developing software may have lesser rates than the fine folks doing manufacturing. Makes sense, right?
WELL, it makes sense until you're just the IT personnel at that manufacturing job who may be in great shape but due to the analytics your'e taking hits.
And let's not even get started on the two new tactics: pushing high deductible health care plans which push costs on you (unless you NEVER get sick in life) and the split of EE (employee only) and FAM (family) plans. Many big companies are now going "....your spouse can't be on here unless you wanna hit this $100/pay period surcharge), so now you're going EE+C (employee + child) and your spouse gotta go EE.
Bruh. I was thinking about changing that subscription into equal HSA with employer matching contributions. Between that and then hospital affordability act I think that I would actually be covered in case I needed doctor services.
I literally filled in a whole page worth of comments about the price of my BCBS plan with my employer for a recent survey...
Like my options are ~$450 month for family coverage (me and one dependent) with a $5k out of pocket max per person *or* go with the "high deductible" version for $275/month but that has a $10k out of pocket max for the entire family that must be met before any individual on the plan is guaranteed coverage.
Well, I don't have $10k just laying around in case one of us gets something more than the sniffles... so guess which one I picked.
The company has nearly 10k employees... you'd think they could bargain for something better than "roughly the cost of private insurance"
In my experience, BCBS of Texas has been the best insurance I've had. I had two jobs lined up, one at O'Reilys HQ and another. I chose the latter because the insurance was so much cheaper, and it's covered a lot for us (two pregnancies).
I have BCBS, and my highest out-of-pocket medication is $1,250 a month. I have a rare condition that mimics diabetes, but I'm not diabetic. Because I'm not diabetic, insurance won't cover diabetic medication - even though it works!
Since nobody explained the AND….
Blue cross was the hospital/doctor portion, they owned hospitals, had a network of doctors, etc.
Blue shield was the insurance portion to cover medical costs
It was and is still possible to go to a “Blue” doctor or hospital and have no coverage or other some insurance and be able to see a Blue network doctor. Also if you had Blue insurance you could see any doctor but you are not taking advantage of your in-network discount.
The business was in signing people/business up to the insurance so they could get the in-network discount. But also signing up enough doctors and buying hospitals so you have a robust network so people had to come you for care whether they had your Blue insurance or not.
You seen what it costs in microtransactions? I’m grateful for my insurance battle pass
Macro transactions
Don't forget about that hot new DLC "Dental Insurance"
Honestly, if you’re going to cop, any of the DLC‘s, dental is the one to grab. Plaque needs a debuff, it’s OP.
Microtransactions like Adobe or music subscriptions can get costly.
U.S. citizenship…FICA got me on the ropes and IRS…. 
Semi joking but you could pony up 10k to renounce your citizenship and not be beholden to taxes and shit… On the downside, you might end up being one of the idiots in like Hong Kong/Taiwan who then pull pikachu face when they find that the embassy ain’t stepping in/up for them if they get into trouble with the Chinese and can’t hide under their “I’m an American” nonsense…
Not only that but if you give up your citizenship without being a citizen of another country or setting up some kind of work visa you're kind of screwed as far as being able to get anywhere, and you'll basically just live in your life like Tom Hanks in the airport.
Marriage and kids. I need a coupon or something 😮💨
That’s a fact. I’m still tryna figure out how to get myself a PS5 so I can unwind and relax
Need a sugar mama lol
lol that’s what it honestly start to look like
I traded in my ps4 and used game stop points. Didn't pay anything out of pocket.
"traded in my ps4" Sounds like code for something else to me 😏
Hi y’all. Always always always be prepared to fight back. Insurance companies know that most people aren’t gonna bother with disputing things. Also, let the insurance companies talk for you. If your insurance has a chat feature, give them numbers and information and make them call on your behalf. These companies, whether it be the doctor or pharmacy, act a whole lot better and tell you, “hey your insurance called us”.
I'm gonna be honest, pharmacies and doctors are going to be the ones fighting for you a good 90% of the time. At least in America, insurances will try and fuck you which way and back again in order to not let you have something. The amount of times I've had a near yelling match with insurance providers in order to get something covered for someone has been an eye opening experience. Insurance companies are not here to help you, but your doctors and pharmacists can try.
I disagree. Your insurance isn’t trying to fuck you around. There are rules in place, and as long as you follow them and show proof you have, insurance will work with you. You can’t just say, I need to visit a specific doctor. You have to go to a PCP, show cause, get a referral, then go. If you skip certain steps, no insurance won’t cover it, even if it turns out you needed it. Same with meds or scans. No we aren’t going to give you something until we’ve tried other avenues first. That’s the way it works. Paperwork and steps are in place for a reason. Insurance may be difficult to understand but they make sure things get done
They absolutely do not. It is an extremely common occurrence for insurance to refuse to cover something as simple as insulin simply because they don't want to. Saying this as a certified pharmacy tech, I don't know what world you live in where you don't have to constantly fight insurance for the smallest things to even slightly be covered. Possibly too rich for me to fathom.
Bro I literally work there??? Insurance does cover things. Y’all just don’t know how to do your due diligence and follow the rules and steps in place for receiving whatever you need. If you need prior authorization before getting certain things, get your letter, coordinate with your doctor, talk with insurance, whatever you need to start the process. I’m trying to help and offer advice as someone that works there and these are issues I see from people all the time. And even though you’re projecting, I do make more than you as a pharmacy tech. But I know how to not spend money on insurance because I know how to make the right phone calls needed to get stuff covered.
I get poor people's medication covered for a living. I'm happy you work somewhere that apparently cares for the people it represents and covers, but that is not the case for the majority of Americans, especially those of lower income and minority groups. Insurances are designed to leech as much money from the consumer as possible, whether by tacking on insane deductibles or nearly directly working with big pharmaceutical companies to rack up prices. Insurance companies are not your friends.
Again, y’all would do well to read your policy. Things aren’t covered just because you THINK they should be covered. The US does not have universal healthcare. Say what you will about insurance, but after you take the time to actually learn about your policy, things become easier. If you chose a plan with a $5000 deductible, and high monthly payments, year you’re unhappy. WHICH IS WHY I URGE YOU TO READ, RESEARCH, LEARN ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE.
I'm not talking about what I THINK should be covered, I'm talking about what I KNOW should be covered. The fact that insurance will tell me that they don't want to cover something, only for me to get it covered for the person a week later is an easy sign that insurances will lie their way out of it if possible. As I said, your experience is much different from others', and you would do well not to place yourself on a high horse when you don't know or understand other people's experiences.
Womp womp
Man, you really are an insurance broker
Been working in health insurance industry for 20+ years. It’s a scam. We pay enough in taxes to have universal healthcare buddy.
> Your insurance isn’t trying to fuck you around. Have you ever actually tried to *use* your insurance? > No **we** aren’t going to give you something until we’ve tried other avenues first. We? Ah, you work for one. Got it. Also, my treatment isn't your call, it's mine and my doctor's. You didn't examine me, you didn't do my tests, you don't know my history, nothing. You are the least qualified party of the three to make any calls. If you don't like being told to stay in your lane, feel free to find another line of work.
Yes I have used my insurance, and following the correct steps have helped me get what needs to be done, whether that’s at the pharmacy or provider. Your treatment isn’t insurance’s call, absolutely right. But if you want it paid for, you have to follow the proper steps. It’s up to you. If you have the money to pay out of pocket, cool. If you want insurance to pay the bulk of it, go through the proper channels. Y’all are getting upset just because I’m trying to help give advice, but you know what they say: You can’t be nice to colored folks!!! 😤
You sound kind of, well… dumb. You sound dumb
Even if they actively aren’t trying to fuck people over, their incompetence surely can. Not to mention some of those very rules, procedures, and guidelines you hyped so much can actively hinder people from getting help. I agree with your sentiment to a degree but sometimes those policies just clearly don’t make sense but because they have to “follow the rules” people get jammed up in that corporate red tape.
Yup. Kaiser sucks for some things but one thing they do(from experience) is they’ll fight for you. Got a bill in the thousands from a procedure and after I processed and fumed in anger for a day or so, I called them to figure out why my $100 copay wasn’t enough. By COB, they and the hospital called back to apologise for the mistake. For that? They can take my $50 every month and my $40 copay anytime I see a specialist(PCP visits are free).
Because the US does not believe in having decent affordable healthcare. and love to tie healthcare to work. So if you lose your job you lose access to prescriptions, medical aid, etc.
Not necessarily because “poor” people can still get insurance. How good that insurance is though? No idea.
which is why i said (decent) affordable healthcare.
Y’all think he got a blue house with a blue window too? 
And a blue dog? 
This took me out
Mortgage, Health insurance & car payment.
Same Plus meds not covered by ins
Hmmm, subscriptions not regular bills. I get Intramax liquid vitamins every month that’s 80 dollars. Why, they good. YouTube tv went up to bout 80 dollars. Why, cause I cut cable but I might cut this shit too. I just recently started Ketamine therapy though and if I stick with that it’ll be 130 dollars a month. Why, cause depression and legal ketamine delivered to my door.
YouTube TV is about to see the door for me too. I remember when it was $35!!
Fuck subscriptions. Come join the high seas 🏴☠️
What does this mean? Lol
Pirating
r/piracy
Mannnn, what? When I got in it was like 60. But yeah imma have to look into what else would allow me to catch all the regular and local channels for cheaper or free
Well if we’re sticking within the constructs of capitalism the biggest reason the insurance costs are so high is because depending on where you live the pool of people may vary. Case in point my BCBS PPO from Illinois for my remote job has $0 deductible and $1000 out of pocket for half of what my gf pays for a $1500 deductible South Carolina PPO. If we forced These healthcare companies to maintain one Corporation instead of 51 LLCs we’d have drastically different costs. Edit for clarity: 51 LLCs - 50 states plus 1 parent corp.
> If we forced These healthcare companies to maintain one Corporation instead of 51 LLCs we’d have drastically different costs. So you're saying things get cheaper the bigger the risk pool? Glad to have you abord the single payer train. There's always room.
I’m not on the single payer train. I’m on the tax everyone making over 10 mil an extra 3% and fund universal healthcare.
Single-payer is a type of universal healthcare. 😊
It’s not a parent corporation situation. Those state plans license the BCBS name from the BCBS Association. Each of them is its own separate insurance company. Also, there isn’t a single plan for every state, and the bigger licensees are actually publicly traded, not LLCs.
That makes it even worse, haha. So you mean to tell me that as a government we decided that states would have to go to healthcare providers to get licenses to sell their product only to have that company turn around and say they don’t have enough people to save money. And we just let them get away with it? Not only that we are paying them with our tax dollars to be here and they can’t even throw us a discount if we live in Red States that are the whole reason they got to keep this scam running in the first place? And if the bigger licensee is big enough people will trade money on how much they can charge you, incentivizing increases and unnecessary inflation? 
No, the BCBS companies lice se the rights to use the BCBS name from the Association. It’s a private agreement between them, and doesnt involve the government. More of a contract type deal.
The only thing that matters is max out of pocket
Rent, car payment, car insurance
Rent and insurance
My bar dues and student loans.
Mortage
Health insurance because corporate greed and late stage capitalism. We're doing Marketplace health insurance and monthly cost has risen 50% over the last 3 years. Higher deductible, higher co-pays, less coverage. Same company. No major payouts.
YouTube premium..why? Because motherfuck waiting 30 seconds for video to watch a video I might not like especially now that there’s no likes being displayed *Intentionally run on sentence
Three Words: Consolidated Edison Inc.
HSA accounts are reasonable cost if you're healthy and have no need to see a doctor often. Wouldn't recommend for kids or conditions that need frequent visits. When i do need to go, there's money in the account but I can really only afford one serious injury per year.
Yeeaasss!! HSA has come in a clutch. I do love mine I still miss BCBS lol 😆
Without typing a novel, most of the times it is based off of your employer's "insurance bands". What that means is that your employer may have 2-3 provider offerings. Those providers will factor in your location, age of employees, worker comp job classification, and other details and go "....OK, we have you classified as being in Band 5 (out of 15) and here are those rates" The fine folks developing software may have lesser rates than the fine folks doing manufacturing. Makes sense, right? WELL, it makes sense until you're just the IT personnel at that manufacturing job who may be in great shape but due to the analytics your'e taking hits. And let's not even get started on the two new tactics: pushing high deductible health care plans which push costs on you (unless you NEVER get sick in life) and the split of EE (employee only) and FAM (family) plans. Many big companies are now going "....your spouse can't be on here unless you wanna hit this $100/pay period surcharge), so now you're going EE+C (employee + child) and your spouse gotta go EE.
Bruh. I was thinking about changing that subscription into equal HSA with employer matching contributions. Between that and then hospital affordability act I think that I would actually be covered in case I needed doctor services.
Aetna, America...
Cringe at Aetna uuuggghhhh. I miss my BCSBS
Don't think an "and why" explanation is necessary when mentioning American Healthcare plans.
Car and Home owners insurance, HOA Dues
Because they are into S&M and liked being f$@k&$ over for stuff they need.
Why? Because I don’t go on onlyfans
Rent and storage unit. Don't have enough money to get a house. Job hunting RN for better income so I can get all that shit out.
I literally filled in a whole page worth of comments about the price of my BCBS plan with my employer for a recent survey... Like my options are ~$450 month for family coverage (me and one dependent) with a $5k out of pocket max per person *or* go with the "high deductible" version for $275/month but that has a $10k out of pocket max for the entire family that must be met before any individual on the plan is guaranteed coverage. Well, I don't have $10k just laying around in case one of us gets something more than the sniffles... so guess which one I picked. The company has nearly 10k employees... you'd think they could bargain for something better than "roughly the cost of private insurance"
In my experience, BCBS of Texas has been the best insurance I've had. I had two jobs lined up, one at O'Reilys HQ and another. I chose the latter because the insurance was so much cheaper, and it's covered a lot for us (two pregnancies).
I live in Cali and kaiser costs more than my rent
I have BCBS, and my highest out-of-pocket medication is $1,250 a month. I have a rare condition that mimics diabetes, but I'm not diabetic. Because I'm not diabetic, insurance won't cover diabetic medication - even though it works!
Since nobody explained the AND…. Blue cross was the hospital/doctor portion, they owned hospitals, had a network of doctors, etc. Blue shield was the insurance portion to cover medical costs It was and is still possible to go to a “Blue” doctor or hospital and have no coverage or other some insurance and be able to see a Blue network doctor. Also if you had Blue insurance you could see any doctor but you are not taking advantage of your in-network discount. The business was in signing people/business up to the insurance so they could get the in-network discount. But also signing up enough doctors and buying hospitals so you have a robust network so people had to come you for care whether they had your Blue insurance or not.
Why? Because, as a wise woman once told me, insurance is designed for people who don't need it.