My company decided not to auto renew our health insurance this year -- and only let us know by email that they were doing this. I came to find in mid December that me, my wife and my four kids will have no insurance in 2025.


They've auto renewed every year except this one and did it because "plans had changed significantly". The plan i had in 2024 is available at the same cost in 2025.



FUN!

Wife was working for a non-profit using insurance a. She worked for 3-4 years with this insurance a, meeting requirements for length of time to apply towards future maternity leave and what not. About 6 months before she got preggo for the first time, her company switched to insurance b. She asked questions and was assured that the time she had put in towards qualifying for certain maternity leave standards would count.

Cut to the birth, insurance b says she has not been on this plan for long enough to qualify for the benefits that she was assured she would receive. Ended with her being paid half of what she thought and only for 4 weeks because insurance b basically denied her full maternity leave benefits due to the switch made by her employer.

We are lucky to have supplemental income which enabled her to take the full 12 weeks and were pretty frugal folks in general, but it was a total assache and really highlighted the need for universal maternity leave guarantees for employees.

My migraine meds were denied. They allowed me 9 pills per month. On an average day I need two pills. AFter over 6 months of fighting them they finally approved my meds. But only 18 pills per month. I had no choice. I go to fill the prescription. My responsibility was $5. The insurance companies responsibility $0. Fighting me over nothing. The pre-authorizations are out of control. Why do you need to pre-auth. a $5 d**g? That use to be used on expensive and experimental stuff. Not the everyday needs. My buddy had neck surgery 3 months ago. Left surgery with all of his scrips, gets to the pharmacy and his pain meds were denied. He needed a prior-auth. Bullsh*t. The man went 6 days with no pain meds after a fairly complicated rebuild of several of his vertebra. I hated to see the CEO get shot. But also wondered what took so long. I don't like feeling like this. This isn't who we are, or were. But I think we are headed for new territory. Stay safe.

2008 went into hospital for ruptured intestine due to crohns.

Airlifted to Mayo clinic high on fentanyl for the pain.

Spent a month in hospital, came out with no colon and looking like a h*******t survivor.

Wife felt like something was wrong, went into obgyn to check on baby. No heart beat at 8 months. they induced labor.

Buried son.

Received a bill for $110k for Mayo Clinic which the insurance company denied.

Received a bill for $20k for abortion which the insurance company denied.

Spent 4 months of daily calls with hospital and insurance company fighting charges all the way down to $12k.

My father got hospitalized for a week from heart failure. Literally guaranteed death without getting medical help, lungs were filled with fluid and he was effectively drowning.

Insurance decided that the entire stay was completely unwarranted because, according to them, it didn't seem like he was sick enough. They didn't want to cover _anything_ relating to it.


While we were eventually successful, it took years to fight. Bill was in the six figures.

As a Brit staring down the scope in horror at the US, I genuinely wonder how any of you survive after things like this. Not only my condolences for lost loved ones, irreplaceable property lost, etc ... but my most profound respect for enduring it all.  My country is on what feels like the brink of a different form of collapse; our politicans are too busy arguing over f*****g sandwiches to realise the writing on the wall. Collectively something needs to change and its not going to come from government. I wish you all the best, honestly. .

My brother was murdered by UnitedHealthcare.

They fought him and denied every single test, treatment, and prescription until it was too late and he was terminal.

My daughter was born with Cystic Fibrosis. We knew she was going to have this due to genetic testing that was done before she was born. She was denied insurance the day she was admitted into the NICU because she had a pre-existing condition since it was known in the womb that she would have CF. I had to fight with insurance literally the day she was born. This was shortly before Obamacare ended that b******t. PS I will never vote for a Republican again in my life for so much as a dogcatcher for how they demonized it because a Democrat passed it.

Doctors kept trying to switch pain meds for my wife she was on daily doses of morphine and it was building up in her system too much. Insurance kept saying they need more reasons to switch meds. She died last year to toxic affects of morphine.

I felt joy when that ceo was taken down.

My dad is an oncologist and he says there has been an uptick in the number of arbitrary denials, by insurance companies, for claims that should absolutely be covered under the patient's plan.

When they're appealed they'll often eventually be approved. But the whole process moves really slow, which can be a death sentence given early treatment is critical when dealing with cancer.

**It almost seems like the insurance companies are delaying s**t on purpose, in the hopes that the patient will die before they have to pay for treatment**.

I got super sick when I was 7, and had an extended hospital stay. Unfortunately, it happened during a brief lapse in my Dad’s employment history, so we were briefly between insurance.

I later found out my parents went bankrupt, and my dad had to take on higher paying jobs he hated in order to pay it off.

He eventually worked himself to death - almost literally; he worked so many hours of overtime he fell asleep at the wheel and drove off the road and crashed into a tree. Worst day of my life.

He should have been enjoying his retirement by now; instead he’s been gone for years, and my mom still struggles with depression and being a widow.

America needs universal healthcare.

don't really have a christmas tradition anymore due to having my grandmother pass on christmas eve in 1997 and then my mom on the same date a few years ago. it has been hard to do anything traditional but thankfully we don't have any little ones that need that magical essence. but, at one time, when the youngest in the family finally realized that santa wasn't 'real' we would have a 'ceremony' that included a solemn oath never to reveal that to any of the young kids they came in contact with. to my knowledge, not one leaked the info. the other one was having one or two drinks and then having a few of us climb on the roof, stomp a bit, ring some sleigh bells, and plant some very obvious footprints. one year my son added chocolate covered raisins to the reindeer trail as scat to 'prove' santa had been there. in all the years only one time did my dad fall off the roof which we considered pretty good.