Categories: Dental Insurance IssuesPaul Henny

What is “Insurance”?

What is “insurance”? Insurance is a product structured in such a way that the provider of the product benefits financially from offering that product to the public. “Fine”, you say, “but isn’t the public benefiting from the product? Isn’t this a “win-win” arrangement?”

Sometimes yes.

Sometimes no.

And which situation insurance falls under has mostly to do with whether or not the insurance company’s values align with our needs and values at the moment we need to use their product.

And is it possible to know if this “alignment” exists on the front end of a contractual relationship with an insurance company?

Yes, but most of us are too lazy to make that determination. Instead, we function on assumptions until our assumptions are proven wrong.

In a recent article in the Washington Times,
a Nevada physician stated that insurance companies in states where assisted suicide is legal, are starting to refuse to cover expensive, life-saving treatments for his patients but have offered to help them end their lives instead.

You heard that right. Some “Health Insurance” companies now represent pro-death values:

“Brian Callister, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Nevada, said he tried to transfer two patients to California and Oregon for procedures not performed at his hospital. Representatives from two different insurance companies denied those transfer requests by phone, he said. And in both cases, the insurance medical director said to me, ‘Brian, we’re not going to cover that procedure or the transfer, but would you consider assisted suicide?’ Dr. Callister told The Washington Times.

The phone calls took place last year within the span of a month, Dr. Callister said, adding that he did nothing to prompt the assisted suicide suggestion in either case.

‘You would think the second time, I would have been ready for it,’ the doctor said. ‘But I was so stunned, I muttered the same stupid line: That’s not legal in Nevada yet. That’s all I could come up with.’

The allegation comes as more than a dozen states are considering legislation to legalize physician-assisted suicide, including Nevada, where Dr. Callister testified against a proposed bill on Monday.”

Is there reason to believe that dental “insurance” has parallel values conflicts?

You bet.

Caveat emptor.

Paul A Henny DDS