CIGNA Made You Apply for Social Security Benefits? How Is That Possible?

I've written about CIGNA calling us and telling us we must apply for Social Security Disability Benefits here and here (where it's even in their own website) and here.

But I got an email from a friend of mine who reads my blog and he asked me, "Margaret, how can they make you do that?"  He was in disbelief.

How can they indeed, especially when the whole industry is so AGAINST government-funded health care, how can they force us to apply for government money?  Doesn't that seem HYPOCRITICAL?

They did it in a phone call and they said we had to prove it and they said if we didn't prove it, our disability claim would be invalid.  That's that.

But I have more, much more proof for you all of how they do this and WHY they do this.  From the article, Insurers Faulted as Overloading Social Security from the New York Times, permalink here.

"The Social Security system is choking on paperwork and spending millions of dollars a year screening dubious applications for disability benefits, according to lawsuits filed by whistle-blowers.

Insurance companies are the source of the problem, the lawsuits say. The insurers are forcing many people who file disability claims with them to also apply to Social Security — even people who clearly do not qualify for the government program.

The Social Security Administration defines “disabled” much more stringently than the insurers generally do, so it rejects most of the applications, at least initially. Often, the insurers then tell their claimants to appeal, the lawsuits say, raising the cost.

The insurers say that requiring a Social Security assessment is a standard practice and that there is nothing wrong with it.

The policies they sell allow them to coordinate their benefit payments with others to make sure no one is paid twice. Thus, if a disabled person can get benefits from somewhere else — like workers’ compensation, a disability pension or Social Security — the insurance company can reduce the benefit check by that amount."

See how that works?  They will do absolutely anything to NOT have to pay the claim.

"The flood of referrals, however, is making it hard for Social Security to respond to people who are truly disabled, said Kenneth D. Nibali, the former top administrator of the Social Security disability program."

Making it hard to respond to people who are truly disabled...

"Jessica Ortiz, a 27-year-old gas station attendant in San Diego, said that was what happened to her. Her disability insurer, the Unum Group, called more than 10 times after she was hurt in a car crash, insisting that she apply for Social Security and asking repeatedly where her application stood. Unum was paying her only $50 a month under her policy, she said, which seemed a small amount to merit so much attention.

She did not need or want money from Social Security, and did not think she was entitled to it. Her doctors had told her she would recover, and Social Security is limited to people whose disabilities are total and permanent. But she applied because Unum insisted, she said."

The hypocrisy of the Insurance Industry, of companies like CIGNA, to FORCE its clients to go apply for federal funds when it suits their bottom line is fine but when it could threaten their profits to have to compete with a Universal Health Care Plan or Public Option, then they pull out all the stops.

"Forcing people who are injured to apply for Social Security before paying their claims appears to bolster insurers’ profits in several ways. If claimants refuse to apply, the insurers can simply stop paying their benefits, said Dawn Barrett, an employee of the Cigna Corporation, who grew frustrated sending people to Social Security and who is now a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits. More typically, she said, people apply for Social Security when an insurer tells them to. That allows the insurer to reduce its claim reserves, money that is kept in conservative investments for benefit payments. And in the insurance industry, smaller reserves mean bigger profits.

“It’s all about the numbers,” Ms. Barrett said.

Finally, disability insurers tell many of their claimants to appeal Social Security’s rejections again and again, until some are finally accepted. Then the insurers can take those people off their rolls, shifting the cost to the government."

Shifting the cost to the government.  Huh, I thought they were against that and I thought it was going to send Health Care Costs up if we shift it to the government.  Oh wait, those are lies.  Lies they use to prevent our nation from enjoying what every other industrialized nation enjoys--A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN.

And that is your private, for-profit Health Insurance Industry working hard to make more money off your poor, sick bodies.

Photo above found here.