WCPO's Hagit Limor Discovers Anthem De Facto Doesn't Cover Mental Illness

My good buddy Hagit Limor from WCPO ran another excellent piece tonight on the fact that, pretty much, Anthem Blue Cross / Blue Shield de facto no longer covers mental illness in this area (video here).

Pretty much what they did a few months back is lower what they will pay mental health professionals SO much that most doctors can no longer afford to accept Anthem. When Bridgepointe bolted I KNEW there was a serious problem.

Pretty much if you have Anthem's insurance there are virtually no providers left who will see you, and the few that will have waiting lists on the order of 4+ months. This is NOT a good situation AT ALL if you or a family member are in need of mental health attention.

As Anthem refused to be interviewed for this story, what Hagit Limor could not discover for the purposes of this story is the WHY behind this behavior on Anthem's part.

It's certainly no secret that insurance companies all around the country have tried to dodge providing mental health care. Many states have had to FORCE insurance companies to provide coverage - so-call "mental health parity" bills.

I'm quite curious as to why this would be the case. Health insurance companies have done many other things to reduce or elimate coverage - raising deductibles and co-pays, challenging claims, refusing coverage on the assumption that many people will not appeal, and a whole host of other ridiculous behavior, but they REALLY seem to have it in for mental health coverage.

Mental health care is expensive. No question about it.

Say, if you have high blood pressure you can get away with seeing your G.P. maybe once or twice a year for 15 minutes.

But if your cheese has even SLIGHTLY dislodged from its cracker, you may be looking at DOZENS of 30 - 60 minute visits over the course of a year and some VERY expensive medications.

However, sometimes I wonder if it's not the financial reasons that health insurance companies fight mental health coverage so strongly.

Sometimes I just wonder if it might be ideological.

Sometimes I wonder if those who call the shots for these companies just might be fans of Mike Huckabee's friend Bill Gothard and his REALLY bizarre ideas that "mental illness", as we currently understand it, is merely a lack of "personal responsibility".

I suppose we may never know.

But, hopefully Hagit Limor's investigations and getting her research to Governor Ted Strickland will AT LEAST get Anthem busted down to its shorts for advertising a group of doctors on its web site that are supposedly "in-network" that really isn't ...

WCPO Running Follow-Up To Anthem Mental Health Story Tonight At 6pm

My good buddy Hagit Limor was nice enough to tip me off that WCPO will be running a follow-up to the "Anthem Mental Health" story they ran back in July and that was covered here.

Good heavens - the Mainstream Media actually READS Axinar's.

Our favorite ConspiracyNut will be alarmed.

The Malaysian contingent however I believe will be impressed. :)

Ms. Limor tells me this follow-up story running tonight at 6pm on WCPO, Channel 9 will be "even stronger than the original".

Whether she means to say that the smell of abject greed will be even stronger or that the nausea induced on the part of the viewers will be even stronger upon learning about even MORE penny-pinching tactics on the part of the health insurance industry that jeopardize people's health, sanity, and solvency she didn't say, but this ought to be a good one.

My DVR is set ... now let's hope Time-Warner can keep the thing running until then ... :)

On that topic:
Nine Secrets Health Insurers Don't Want You to Know - Health.com

"Mental Illness" vs. "Irresponsibility"

Speaking of utterly outrageous ideas that just barely have enough merit to contribute to a decent conversation - a few weeks back The Cincinnati Beacon, whilst doing some research on the background of GOP Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee, stumbled across the video of someone Mike Huckabee is reported to follow - a televangelist by the name of Bill Gothard who seems to be promoting the theory that there is no such thing as mental illness - that what we ordinarily think of as "mental illness" is merely a lack of "personal responsibility".

Ordinarily, as with Holocaust deniers and people who think we never walked on the moon, one's first impression might be to attempt to supress the expression of such theories. In fact, I believe it is possible that the mainstream media has been so successful in silencing the Thumpers that many in the non-Thumper community are not even familiar with the details of the Thumper ideology. This of course is quite dangerous as there are Thumpers in VERY high levels of power in this country and we don't even know the details of how they think.

Bill Gothard's ideas would shed some light on the behavior of some powerful Thumpers I have encountered in my travels. In fact, I used to think it was more of a "sports mentality" than a "Thumper mentality".

You see, there seems to be a certain line of thinking among certain coach types that you can "shake off" just about anything but the most serious injuries and illnesses. Probably the most notorious case of this was a gymnastics coach by the name of Bela Karolyi who, during the 1996 summer Olympics, encouraged Kerri Strug to "shake it off" after a badly sprained ankle.

Such callousness one might have attributed to the "heat of the moment" of such an important spoting event, but, having encountered similar notions from other sources, I am beginning to wonder if such behavior might be attributable to this dangerous notion that there is no such thing as illness (mental or otherwise), or possibly even injury - that most, if not all "atypical" behavior is a malfunction of character rather than physiology.

Yes, if there are people out there who think like this - particularly in positions of power - we need to know about it - if for no other reason than to know who to vote against ...

Hagit Limor Discovers Anthem Is Cheap

My good buddy Hagit Limor of Channel 9's I-Team has just discovered [[GASP]] - Anthem doesn't want to pay for mental health care.

As a matter of fact, for a very long time they outsourced their mental health administration to a company called "Magellan". Earlier this year they decided to take administration of their mental health benefits in-house and, as Hagit Limor discovered, right about the same time Anthem decided to cut what they will pay mental health providers 15-20%.

The net result was that what few therapists and psychiatrists that were still on Anthem jumped ship - including a whopper - Bridgepointe.

Yes, increasingly, if you or any of your dependents is in need of mental health care you're going to have to go out-of-network and pay through the nose.

For all of you who are criticizing Michael Moore's Sicko for not properly documenting the wait times that some Canadians experience for some procedures, pay attention.

There are medical queues right here in Cincinnati.

AND, even if you HAVE "good insurance" sometimes you are talking about co-pays in the $25 - $40/hr range and, particularly when you are getting established with a psychiatrist or therapist, you can sometimes be in several times a WEEK. It doesn't take very long at that rate to wind up on the doorstep of a Chapter 13 or Chapter 7 filing.

At very least the Channel 9 story has prompted Hamilton County to investigate if Anthem's actions constitute a breach of contract.

YES!

It's about time someone takes on those rotten ...

If you know of any other stories of abuses by insurance companies (or any other mega-corporations for that matter), please drop me a note at axinar@gmail.com or leave a message on The Gripe Line: +1 (513) 322-2452.

Related:
Uninsured need attention, too - MichaelMoore.com

Darth Vader - Borderline Personality Disorder?

Darth Vader's Psyche: What Went Wrong?
- CBS News / WebMD