By Michael McGehee at Aug 17, 2009
I really have a distaste for insurance companies, especially health insurance companies.
Something about charging a cousin nearly $3500 a month for chemo pills so that his wife can live disturbs me.
Swine (no offense to pigs).
My wife, Amy, is bipolar. She is on medications. I find it difficult to believe Aetna, her insurance company, is unaware that a patient cannot simply cease taking their medication. When we decided to have a baby - Lucy was in fact born 13 days ago - she needed to consult her psychiatrist to ween her off the medication slowly.
After Lucy was born Amy and I agreed it was important to resume her medications since her hormones went crazy. That is why her psychiatrist had prescriptions ready for her to fill long before the baby was born.
Last night we go to refill a prescription at CVS and Aetna, the insurance company, arbitrarily decided to deny a non-narcotic. The phone representative said she was "unaware" as to why it was declined but Amy suspects that it is because this particular drug is the only non-generic one and that the inusrance company didn't want to pay for it. Aetna made it known loud and clear: they are in business to make money, not assist in providing health to their customers. If providing drugs is profitable then they are glad to be saints, but if it eats at their bottom line ($) then... oh well.
I find this exceedingly plausible and well into the realms of probable while inching round certainty.
Luckily the pharmacist at CVS understood the implications of a new mother being denied bipolar medications and gave her enough to hold her through the night and today so as to have her doctor clear it with the insurance company as to why it is important she have her medications.
Aetna is a tyranny that does not deserve to exist. We need single-payer healthcare. The quality of our health and our lives depends on it.
Something has got to give and it's not my wifes sanity or safety.
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