Health insurance companies have made the decision to reduce the coverage that they offer to allow people to get prosthetic limbs because the companies now say that they aren’t always “medically necessary.” People are starting to report that they are getting rejection letters from their insurance companies telling them that they limb they are trying to replace isn’t actually needed, according to new reports. It is no wonder that people hate health insurance companies so much, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.
 
Link – https://www.rawstory.com/health-insurers-limit-coverage-of-prosthetic-limbs-questioning-their-medical-necessity/

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Recent murder of the United Health CEO has kind of sparked a weird response, as I'm sure we have all seen online with more people apparently having sympathy for the alleged murderer than for the CEO EO. And you know, not that I have any love for insurance companies or CEOs in general. This was a human being. This was a father, this was a husband. He lost his life. And that is sad and that is tragic for the family. But then stories like this next one come along that make you understand why people have such animosity towards health insurance companies and the people who run them. Because according to a new report, increasingly across the country, health insurance companies are denying claims for people to get prosthetic limbs after an amputation because the health insurance companies are telling these people that your prosthetic limb is not medically necessary.

Think about that for a second, folks. You lose your leg, you know you can't walk on your own. Now you have to have some form of assistance unless you get a prosthetic. So the doctor says, I am prescribing you a prosthetic. 'cause that's what has to happen in order for the insurance to even get the claim. But then the insurance company comes back and says, I'm sorry, but medically speaking, you don't need that leg back. Denied. Prosthetic limbs typically cost on the low end, about $50,000, and they go up from there. Most of the people who have prosthetics have to pay at least something out of pocket. And when insurance denies their claim, according to the report, these people either have to go without, or in many instances, they actually have to go to the bank and take out a loan to replace their limb that the insurance company was supposed to cover. So these people are driving themselves further into debt after clearly suffering something traumatic because you don't just have a limb amputated because it's fun, because you were bored that day. Something bad has happened. And now to add insult to injury, you have to go into 60, 70, $80,000 of debt because some pencil pusher at the insurance company said, Nope, you don't need a leg. You don't need a foot. You don't need to replace your dominant arm because it's not in their eyes medically necessary.

It is no wonder that people in this country hate health insurance companies. This is definitely not the most disturbing story I've ever talked about, but it's, it's up there. It's top 10. This is horrific. Only 30% of amputees in this country even have prosthetics. And a lot of the reason for that is because of insurance companies denying the claims and the limbs themselves being cross cost prohibitive if they do not have insurance. This, this system has to end. We can continue on this path and remain a a properly functioning country. Health insurance is one of the biggest scams ever pulled off on the American people. And it shouldn't exist because we should have a universal health care system where if you need to go to the doctor, you don't have to worry. Like are they in network? Are they outta network? Well, maybe they're in network, but now they've scheduled a test that's, even though it's at an in-network facility, the test itself is out of network. And I'm actually using that as an example because that happened to me this week.