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Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

cnbc.com

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Re: Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

#11

Post by BowBun »

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I hate insurance companies. For one, they refused to pay for pre-approved claims when my wife had cancer and was being treated at Stanford (We were double-insured. Apparently, when you have two insurances, it is common for carriers to decline payments in the hope that the other insurance will pay it.) So my wife couldn't get out of bed and we literally had a stack of unpaid bills over a foot high and totaling over a…

That's what happens when you make a for-profit business out of people's health, hoping the clients either never make a claim or that you can loophole your way out of saving some zeroes in a spreadsheet. Unfortunately, those zeroes could be the difference between your spouse living or dying. The underlying problem is a flawed healthcare system, but with even socialist countries' citizens starting to have to buy insurance to get the care they need [0], I'm skeptical any easy or relatively short-term solution exists.

[0]http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/22/socialist-swedes-take-to-p...

Re: Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

#12

Post by Godel_unicode »

danharaj wrote: post #4
dmarlow wrote: post #3

Seems like a PR move more than anything else. I'm tired of hearing about all of these weird benefits. How about just an awesome place to work that pays well?

Weird benefits are a result of employers trying to incentivize their workers to behave in certain ways.

For example, the weird benefit that many US companies give their employees reduced healthcare premiums if they certify that they are tobacco-free

Re: Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

#13

Post by Godel_unicode »

voodootrucker wrote: post #5

This seems like a creepy overreach into personal matters that's bound to continue, and likely end badly.

I'm curious how you see a voluntary program to pay employees to do something they should be doing anyway is creepy and/or overreach?

Re: Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

#14

Post by artursapek »

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I hate insurance companies. For one, they refused to pay for pre-approved claims when my wife had cancer and was being treated at Stanford (We were double-insured. Apparently, when you have two insurances, it is common for carriers to decline payments in the hope that the other insurance will pay it.) So my wife couldn't get out of bed and we literally had a stack of unpaid bills over a foot high and totaling over a…

Two years ago my wife and I were unable to get Aetna to pay for a home birth, even though we got it approved ahead of time. After months of futile phone calls where they basically kept me on hold for 30 minutes and then told me to fuck off, what finally got them to pay up was an angry tweet I wrote. I thought it was silly, but was advised to try it as a last resort by the midwife's billing assistant. Amazingly, they reached out and immediately paid for it in full when they saw the tweet.

I wonder how many people never try what I tried, and simply never get their claims paid after getting filtered out by their phone network. Horrible system.

Re: Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

#17

Post by sna1l »

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I hate insurance companies. For one, they refused to pay for pre-approved claims when my wife had cancer and was being treated at Stanford (We were double-insured. Apparently, when you have two insurances, it is common for carriers to decline payments in the hope that the other insurance will pay it.) So my wife couldn't get out of bed and we literally had a stack of unpaid bills over a foot high and totaling over a…

Medical insurance in the US doesn't make any sense. Insurance is supposed to be a hedge against a large risk, but in the US we use our medical insurance to pay for common visits and prescriptions. Everyone is so used to this model that it doesn't seem weird.

Imagine if you used your car insurance to pay for gas. That would be ludicrous. No other "insurance" is handled in this manner.

Re: Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

#18

Post by marincounty »

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I hate insurance companies. For one, they refused to pay for pre-approved claims when my wife had cancer and was being treated at Stanford (We were double-insured. Apparently, when you have two insurances, it is common for carriers to decline payments in the hope that the other insurance will pay it.) So my wife couldn't get out of bed and we literally had a stack of unpaid bills over a foot high and totaling over a…

I'm sorry.

I think their are fixes, but the average American doesn't seem to want change.

All these big corporations need to do is throw some money at advertisers, create a little scare--almost always just a scare tactic. Like there will be Death Squads, or we will have to wait six months for a MRI, and the people just cave in, and say no to any changes.

Again, I'm sorry about your wife.

Re: Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

#19

Post by JohnTHaller »

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I hate insurance companies. For one, they refused to pay for pre-approved claims when my wife had cancer and was being treated at Stanford (We were double-insured. Apparently, when you have two insurances, it is common for carriers to decline payments in the hope that the other insurance will pay it.) So my wife couldn't get out of bed and we literally had a stack of unpaid bills over a foot high and totaling over a…

Medical insurance in the US is absurdly corrupt. Fun fact, health insurance companies are exempt from most anti-trust laws. Health insurance companies are free to collude on price and split up states between each other to limit competition.

Re: Aetna's CEO pays workers up to $500 to sleep

#20

Post by epicureanideal »

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I hate insurance companies. For one, they refused to pay for pre-approved claims when my wife had cancer and was being treated at Stanford (We were double-insured. Apparently, when you have two insurances, it is common for carriers to decline payments in the hope that the other insurance will pay it.) So my wife couldn't get out of bed and we literally had a stack of unpaid bills over a foot high and totaling over a…

The people who cry when telling work stories from insurance companies should seriously quit and preferably go to the media about why. I really don't doubt that if they asked for $1 on the media they'd get much more than their salary back for exposing this nonsense.
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