Comment by Abishek_Muthian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Abishek_Muthian | Hacker News Reader

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Abishek_Muthian

Hi thanks for doing what ever you're doing to help under- and non-insured people.

I'm disabled, Achondroplasia. Insurers in my country have constantly denied me health insurance. I have documented at length my ordeal with top health insurers in the country, Who are in partnership with leading international insurers[1]. Now there is 100% FDI for the insurance industry.

I've appealed to the regulatory body with each instance, But they always side with the insurance company as the former close my requests under totally different pretext (never mentioning that they denied me a policy) e.g. My complaint is that insurer not providing me the policy, Insurer responds to my complaint as 'Your refund will be processed in 10 days' and my regulatory body closes my complaint as 'Insurer has responded'.

This in-spite of clear supreme court verdicts in similar previous cases asking the insurance regulator to ensure disabled are not denied policies.

[1] https://abishekmuthian.com/insurers-are-putting-the-lives-of...

P.S. I will update some latest developments to the blog tomorrow where a insurer asked me to lie about my disability to get the policy.

This is why public health insurance is so important and why I feel so lucky to be covered by one: my brother had brain hypoxia during birth and even in a country (Spain) with a solid public system it places considerable personal and financial strain on our family.

I don't know about your legal system but in Spain at least it must be proved by the insurer that if you lie about a previous condition that lie is directly related to the payment they are trying to deny you.

That's a nice law. In Canada, most aspects of medical insurance are single payer, but other aspects (like out-of-country travel medical insurance) give too much latitude to the insurance companies. If you make any false statement when applying for insurance, when you try to use your insurance, the company will refuse your claim and declares the policy null and void. For example, theoretically, if you don't disclose even the smallest details (e.g. that you had a chest x-ray done 10 years ago that did not show any abnormality), and then you get something completely unrelated, like getting stabbed during your travel and have to go to the hospital, the insurance company can and will refuse to pay out. It's ridiculous.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/retired-coup...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/hefty-medica...

It does depend on the province. In Québec some travel medical care is covered by the state.

Technically yes, but practically no. The difference between paying nothing out of a 100k hospital bill and paying 1k out of a 100k hospital bill is approximately the whole bill.

> We reimburse, at pre-set rates, the cost of hospital services received as a result of a sudden illness or an accident, as follows:

> * a maximum of CA$100 per day for hospitalization

> * up to CA$50 per day for healthcare received at a hospital outpatient clinic

At those rate, I wouldn't even bother submitting the forms to RAMQ for reimbursement.

https://www.ramq.gouv.qc.ca/en/citizens/absence-quebec/know-...

Actually in most of the world this is not so bad at all. It's insufficient in the US or many third world countries, but if I were to fall ill in, say, Africa or South East Asia (+China) it would be pretty good.

I hope your brother is doing well and the law you mentioned clearly shows your Govt.'s attitude to protect the rights of insured over corporate profits; Congratulations for making that happen.

Here, I'm 100% certain that those who have significant per-existing illness have lied about it to get their policy. But the thing is, I feel the insurers want us to lie so as to deny the claim.

That's why I didn't lie about my per-existing illness to any of the insurers and so got my policy rejected by a clerks based on a business policy, not science.

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