Why Am I Doing This?

A year ago, I started this blog when my husband was denied long-term disability coverage by CIGNA.  This was a policy he paid for and one, he hoped, he never had to use.

Because of the legal tangle we were anticipating, our attorney suggested I remove the blog because ANYTHING I wrote about our ordeal could be used against us.  Against us.  A man with Multiple Sclerosis who was in the midst of an exacerbation that was leaving him in pain, with severe and blinding headaches, unable to walk for longer than 10 minutes (with his cane) and anything I wrote could be used against us.  By his disability insurance company.

This is what is wrong with our health care system today.  You cannot have for-profit companies making decisions about managing your health.  The decisions will be made based on actuarial tables and the company's bottom line, not on the well-being of the insured.

In the coming weeks, I will go back and document what happened to us over the last year.  I will produce documents from CIGNA that said my husband was not disabled in any way--this despite two UCLA neurologist's opinions that stated otherwise--one of whom is the lead specialist at UCLA's Multiple Sclerosis Clinic. I will show you the depths to which they will sink in order to prevent having to pay a claim. 

If you are still opposed to health care reform, I suggest you read something real.  Like this blog.  Like a newspaper and tune out FOX news or any other outlet that has the backing of insurance companies for a few days.  The insurance companies don't want reform. And Mr. Murdoch has money to make by peddling fear and ignorance on FOX, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.

And if you think reform means a government bureaucrat will make decisions regarding your health, then let me ask you this?  Who is making them now?  Insurance bureaucrats who have no interest in you, other than to make sure you don't cost their company more money.  Like the call we got from CIGNA telling my very ill husband we had been denied coverage--a day BEFORE the 12 page questionnaire we were to return to CIGNA detailing his illness, his prescriptions, how his disability had manifested itself, his work history and his education was due to them.  Before. These 12 pages of detailed questions, they said, were necessary for them to have in order to make a decision about his disability coverage.

But that was a lie.

They lied to a very sick man. And in doing so, CIGNA made his illness worse during the months we had to deal with them during his disability. More lies followed plus the failure to hold up their end of the contract and pay his benefits. They added to the exacerbation of his Multiple Sclerosis. It was a very painful time for us as a family and one that every American who pays their insurance premiums needs to be aware of.

I think the CEO of CIGNA, H. Edward Hanway's compensation speaks for itself.

Until next time, stay healthy because the insurance you pay for isn't worth anything to you but it's worth a lot to the shareholders.